Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade
by Joe JS Smitty
Summary: What happens when a young boy decides to tell the truth? What are the events that unfurl from this single action? Chapter 4 up. As the day to Kouta's arrival draws near, Lucy's new friend starts behaving very differently. CH5 IN PROGRESS, PLEASE BE PATIEN
1. Experiment Lucy: Age 10

_Elfen Lied_ and its characters are property of outside companies; I claim no ownership of them.

Authors Note: A "what-if" question that popped into my mind a couple weeks back and this is the end result. There's not much to say without spoiling the plot, except that the characters are loosely based off the manga. Anime-only viewers should have no problem recognizing the events in the first chapter however. Enjoy.

**Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade: **

**XXX0 – Experiment Lucy Age 10**

_The choices we make in life, the decisions we decide to follow affect the very world around us. With each choice we make, hundreds more open up for us until ultimately we walk down the road that leads to our destruction. What if, then, we had the power to change our decisions? Right our wrongs? Take the path less walked on? Explore the seemingly unexplorable? This story is about a young boy and girl, and in a moment that can decide their entire future no matter how seemingly mundane it may be, the boy, young at age but not at heart, decides for himself to tell the truth…_

"This…is the best day…of my entire life."

A young Kouta, no older than ten years old, became immediately embarrassed and flustered when the wet, naked young girl who would come to be known as Lucy, turned around and exposed her entire body to him, uncaring of what he may see, only worried about what he would hear.

"…You're exaggerating," he replied in a soft voice as he tried not to make eye contact with her.

"It's true," she said so quick she cut him off from speaking further, "I will never…forget this day."

The entire day was, for the girl to be known as Lucy, the best day in her life thus far. Treated like an animal by her classmates and even her caregivers, she had found solace and comfort in of a young boy who appeared out of nowhere, and became the first person ever to comment generously on how 'cool' her horns were. Lucy had gone to the zoo today, seen animals that she never even realized existed until today, uncaring of the world outside of her vision. Even the last few minutes before this glorious day would end was spent splashing in a nearby creek, one trying to dunk the other in an onslaught of giggles and high-pitched squeals. And as their clothes dried and they walked hand-in-hand to the bus that would take Kouta home and Lucy to the nearest house she could find, a burning sensation began to consume her heart.

_How dare this day must end…_

Lucy peered at the jade that Kouta had dished out of the river, its soft green hue illuminating her hand. She had seen gems before, but she didn't realize that they came out so beautifully from the mountains. But gems and everything else were the last thing on her mind.

"Kouta?" She whispered. Although startled, he made a noise that signified he heard her. "Say…tomorrow's festival…" her face was becoming so hot, and it was quite bothersome. Was one more day really so hard to ask of him before he went away? "Can we go there together?"

"Ehh…" Kouta muttered. He had almost completely forgotten about the festival, he was having such a great time today. His dad could probably lend him some more pocket change for it, except….

Yuka's angry face flashed into his mind, her irritated voice accompanying it, "Don't forget about tomorrow's festival, okay?"

"I'm sorry…" finally replying to her question, "I've already promised that I'll go with my cousin tomorrow…really…"

"It's okay," she said knowing full well that it wasn't. This was the first person that had ever wanted to be close to her, the first person she could ever really trust. She just wanted to spend one more day in this disgusting town with the only beautiful thing she had come to find in it, Kouta.

Gripping her skirt, anger and jealously began to overcome her. Who was this cousin of his? A boy? Or a girl? Not that it mattered; it wasn't like he was spending the day with her. But if it was a girl, then maybe Lucy, this entire day, meant nothing to him. Or worse, could he be having fun with her emotions? Like she was some kind of puppet or, or…

_An animal._

Exactly.

"_No…"_ she thought to herself. Once again she could feel the heat begin to rise in her cheeks, because she was furious at herself, letting her emotions get carried away like this, _"Getting all jealous right now…acting stupid…"_

Her heart had yet to slow down, why was this feeling so damn intense? If this was going to continue she was going to do something awful to him, the only person she ever really loved. There was no reason to get jealous or angry with him, he had done nothing wrong. If this rage was going to continue, she might end up hurting him or worse! Finally, she calmed down a little, loosening the bare-white knuckles from her skirt.

_If you're going to kill him…might as well do it now…_

Shit it's you again! Shut up…

_It's all right to kill a human, 'specially if he pisses you off._

It's not okay! I love Kouta; he hasn't pissed me off!

_Oh I'm sure he's going to the festival with some girl. Don't have horns like you I bet, probably don't look like a devil or an ox or whatever the hell they're calling us._

…………………

_Look, kill him now and you'll only be sad for a day or two. Three tops. You don't and it'll just drag on._

Stop it! I can't take it! Who are you?!

_……………_

With uncaring eyes she forced herself on top of Kouta, running his hands down his chest…

_You know full well who I am._

And closed her fingers tight around his throat.

At first Kouta thought she was playing, that any minute now she would let go, stick out her tongue and say "Gotcha". But she didn't let go, she didn't let go for a long time.

"C…Can't breathe…" he gasped out with the last remaining bit of air left in his lungs. All it took was those whispery gasps to bring Lucy back to consciousness, the pupil of her eyes slowly returning.

"I…I'm so sorry!" Lucy screamed as she jumped off of him. Before her feet even touched the ground, the air that Kouta was dying for rushed into his lungs and he became a mass of coughing spasms. "Are you ok?!"

"W…Why'd you do that all of a sudden?" His voice would have been louder if not for the burning sensation in his throat and lungs. Lucy stepped back, horrified. She had actually tried to kill him; she had almost succumbed to this…dark desire for death.

"Why…" she muttered to herself, "…why…?" She asked herself this over and over again in her mind. What was wrong with her? Sure most humans' lives didn't matter, but if someone like Kouta exists, that's all the reason she needed not to hurt anyone anymore. But she couldn't resist her instincts; she couldn't resist the tiny voice in her head that told her she's better than these horn-less monsters…that they all needed to die.

_"No…I'm the monster…"_

"What's the matter?" He asked her, "Are you ok?" Kouta had forgiven her for the attack, figuring it was just a moment of weakness and anger. After all, it had been the best day of her life; he understood why she didn't want it to end. Although he was expecting an answer, he wasn't prepared for what she said next.

"Kouta…"she said weakly, "I have a request of you." He remained silent, listening closely to her words, "If I were to…kill lots of people at once…" she brought her hands away from her tear-stained eyes, looking the weakest she ever had, "Kill me, Kouta…"

It took a while for those words to register into Kouta's head. Was she joking? It had to be a joke, she was just acting and any minute now she would laugh and say "Gotcha".

But she didn't.

"Wh-What weird things are you saying?" he asked.

"I beg you…" she responded immediately, "I want you to kill me…because by myself…by myself I might become reluctant to die so…." Lucy didn't finish, fearing her own mortality, that Kouta might hate her, that he might not do it when the time came she didn't want to finish. Again she began to weep softly into her hands; even more terrified that Kouta might think her weak or a crybaby.

He scooted so close to her that their knees were touching and placed his hand on the small of her back. Maybe the bus ride would have gone smoother if he had hugged and consoled her then. Maybe it would have made it worse. They wouldn't know.

"Thank you for today…" an embarrassed Lucy said, now blushing profusely for being so close to him. Night had settled in Kamakura and for a summer day it had become very late. They still wanted to spend more time with one another, Lucy more so than Kouta, but Kouta impressed that his dad would be upset if he dallied any longer, and with a smile turned away from Lucy.

"Um…Kouta…" Lucy squeaked out again. He stopped, completely paying attention to her, "That cousin you're going with to the festival tomorrow…is it a guy? Or a girl?"

"Ehh?"

Where had that come from, he wondered. She looked so worried and scared, she had been through so much the last hour.

_"If I tell her the truth…"_ Kouta thought, _"She will probably suffer…"_

His mouth began to move around, contorting itself like a snake. The back of his tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth as he struggled to say the word he wanted to, "A g…g…"

_"But…but I have nothing to hide from her…she's my friend too…"_

"A girl."

Lucy felt her body lock up. It was exactly as she had feared. The coiling, burning desire in the pit of her heart sprung to life again, it was that desire, that born instinct to render flesh from bone. Without thinking she could feel her vectors, ethereal arms with unnatural strength, slowly slither out of her body.

"But…!" Kouta's voice snapped Lucy out of her deadly mind-set, blankly staring into his eyes, "She's my friend too, and if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be here."

Lucy thought on this for a moment. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't spend his last day with her, it was this…cousin on his. Whoever this girl, this slut was, she was keeping him away from her. She shouldn't take her anger out on Kouta. No no no, she loves Kouta, why would anyone want to hurt someone they love?

Who she hated, was this whore of a cousin.

"So…" Lucy said, her voice trembling with unspeakable excitement, "If…If you weren't going out with her to the festival…you could go with me?"

"Absolutely!" He exclaimed loudly, glad to see that she was taking this so well, "And I guess…well there's nothing that says I can't see you at the festival too is there?"

Lucy heart began to fill with an unspeakable joy. What a way to kill two birds with one stone, "Yup. I don't think anyone will mind me going."

Kouta nodded and turned to walk away from her, "I hope to see you tomorrow then. If not, then I'll see you at the Enoshima station in two days." He hardly took a step before stopping, nervously looking back at her, "I…will see you at the station, won't I?"

All feelings of anger and ferocity resided for a moment. Staring into his eyes she almost forgot why she was so angry. Why she wanted to kill so much.

"O-Of course I'll come…do you…promise to come back next summer?"

The both of them illuminated the night sky with their glowing faces; they could have landed planes on that tiny little sidewalk of theirs. After several moments of silence, Kouta spoke up, "Yeah…I'll come back."

There was little Lucy hated more than seeing the back of his head disappear into the darkness of the street.

This cousin was one of them.

------------------

The festival could not have come faster enough for Lucy. Tonight she would be rid of the competition and be with Kouta all to herself. Carefully she watched all the men, women, and children pile into temple grounds, but none of them she recognized. They were all piles of meat to her, the only thing keeping her from killing them was she wanted to spend as much time with Kouta as she possible could.

"He hasn't come in yet…" she said to herself after twenty minutes of watching people come in and out. "Maybe he's already in there."

_And maybe he's not…_

"Hush…" she told herself again. Cautiously she walked into the throng of people, eager to find Kouta.

"I'd like to try a C-Rank piece please!" An excited Yuka asked. The owner of the game stand reluctantly reached for one of the several piles of wooden games that lined his shelf. This particular game had the outline of a baby chick on it and handing it and a small pointed stick to Yuka, she immediately set to poking the outline of the

Snap.

"Ah! It cracked!"

"Better luck next time kiddo," the vendor said, clearly wanting a cigarette.

"Geez you suck…" Kouta said contemptuously to let Yuka know that he was completely unimpressed. Angrily she looked back at him, expecting to see his smug face smiling at her failure. Instead she was greeted with an irritated and anxious twisting of his mouth.

"Well why don't you do it then Kouta-kun?!" She yelled in frustration.

"Huh?" He muttered. It was then that Yuka realized he wasn't paying much attention to her which only made her more angry. "Sure, I'll try it."

Taking a C-Rank game from the vendor, he proceeded to slowly tap his stick along the borderline of the picture of a cat. Slowly he chipped away the excess pieces of the balsa wood away doing much better at it than

Snap.

"Darnit." The vendor once again gave another reluctant "Nice try" and continued to focus on his magazine.

"See?!" Yuka said with superiority, "You can't do it either!"

"I can so do it! It's just that I'm a little distracted…" he looked away into the shuffling crowds for a familiar face. Two feet away from him another familiar face was pouting.

"Is…is it that girl you saw last night?"

Kouta scratched his head, realizing the folly of his words, "Yeah…she said she might meet me here."

As the words escaped his lips Yuka's eyes began to water, her quivering lip beginning to shake more violently. Kouta jerked when he saw her face, now feeling immensely embarrassed for bringing her up.

"Well sh-sh-she's my friend too!" He yelled as she put her face into her hands, "And she said that she might be coming and I couldn't say ok please stop crying!"

Indeed she was crying softly into her hands now, just enough so that passers-by would get the impression that Kouta had done something really wrong. "But-But Kouta-kun said he would go to the festival with me…" she sniffled loudly.

"And I am!" The last part came out rather loudly drawing more attention to the two of them, "It's just that she's coming too and we said we'd meet here and…." It was no use; there was nothing that could stop her from crying. Now completely covered in tears Kouta felt worst than ever. Placing his hand on her head he tried again to console her, "I'm sorry…I didn't realize how much the festival means to…"

"It's not just that!" she yelled, finally plowing herself into Kouta's chest. "Kouta-kun is going to leave soon…and I don't know if he's coming back…"

This took Kouta completely by surprise, her near uncontrollable sobbing dampening his shirt and probably her yukata. Feeling a bit relieved his insensitivity wasn't the exact cause of her sadness, he sighed and pushed her away gently, "Hey stop crying now. You're supposed to be grown up aren't you?" Although her head was bowed low she nodded, "And I told you I'd be back next summer didn't I? I always keep my promises don't you…"

"Kouta-kun!" A recognizable voice called to him from a group of people. Immediately his face brightened up, and turned to face the oddly smiling face of Lucy.

Yuka, knowing full well that she was competition for Kouta, slowly shuffled behind him, peeking from behind his back. To Yuka, this unknown girl's smile was…she searched for the word to best describe the feeling she got from her…that was it.

Frightening.

"Is this your cousin?" Lucy asked very smoothly, her piercing eyes boring into Yuka's skull. She cowered behind Kouta's back more.

Kouta, as it turned out, could hardly contain his excitement from seeing her. He wanted nothing more than to run out and grasp her hands. And upon seeing the growing smile on his face, Lucy too wanted nothing more than to do the same.

She looked at Yuka once more, her eyes narrowing upon seeing her.

_"She'll have to wait…"_

At once Kouta began pressing her with the rudimentary questions, alibi he was very excited to ask them and she was very excited to answer them. For Yuka, hours passed before Kouta finally remembered that she was there.

"Ah! Gomen Yuka," he turned to Lucy, "This is my cousin Yuka-chan. Yuka-chan, this is…"

"Nice to meet you," Lucy said sinisterly, extending a hand out to her.

Not used to such a Western greeting, Yuka nervously stared at her hand. Although Yuka wasn't unfamiliar with the greeting, the very way this girl held out an open hand was…insulting. With a half-bow, Yuka grabbed her hand and they squeezed each other's.

And Lucy made sure she felt it.

"I-Itai…" Yuka moaned softly, caressing her throbbing hand. Considering that Kouta was standing right next to her and unable to see her wincing face, Lucy considered it a personal victory against this rival.

"We were just playing a game! Want to try it?" Kouta asked Lucy. She looked at him, then at the game vendor who was too busy with his magazine to pay the slightest amount of attention to them.

It didn't look like much fun; but then again she didn't think the zoo would be such a blast either. And when Kouta was more than happy to give several hundred yen for a tiny board with the depiction of a crude alligator on it, Lucy obliged. But she had other things on her mind, making Yuka gone by the end of the festival, getting as close to Kouta as was

Snap.

"Wah! It cracked!" Lucy exclaimed loudly. Tears began to form in the corner of her eyes, her cheeks puffed out in frustration and the thought of Kouta's gloating smile didn't make her feel any better. "Ok then," she yelled at him, "Why don't you try it?"

Kouta laughed heartily, "If you insist." And after receiving another board, this one with a picture of a dog, bent down and began chipping away at it with speed and precision. All the while Lucy kneeled down next to him and tried her hardest not to look impressed even resorting to cheap taunts to distract them. Nothing worked and the dog was successfully removed from the rest of the wood with no cracks or splinters.

A pair of sorrowful eyes watched the two of them, eyes that were on the verge of tears. Yuka was upset at Kouta for spending time with this girl and at the same time upset at herself for not being more assertive with him. The two of them together made Yuka sick to her stomach, she just wanted to hit Kouta as hard as she could. But there was no time to be upset now; this was a time for action.

"I'd like a B-Rank please!" She yelled, with more anger than excitement in her voice. This time it was of a snake emerging from a coiled position as if it were being charmed. Yuka would take her time with this one and she would show up Kouta and this girl with the odd hair and weird hat that Kouta was

Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrack!

"Woah Yuka, did you sneeze or something?" Kouta asked completely stupefied how she managed to not only go through the snake's neck but out the other side of the wood.

"I…I didn't but…something pushed it…" she said. Her hand continued to tremble at what just happened, something had grabbed the end of the stick that stuck out of hand and pushed it across the wood. Look! There was even a long scrape across the polished wood on the stand; she couldn't have managed that.

But Kouta, the girl, and the vendor all disagreed with her, the vendor sending them off with a huff at ruining his stand.

"Your cousin is quite beastly isn't she?" Lucy asked Kouta, her voice piercing Yuka's chest.

This was taken as a joke in Kouta's mind, and he had no problem joining in on the fun, "No kidding. I always thought she was inhumanly strong but never like this."

He patted her head, to which Yuka did NOT enjoy. She was being humiliated by the both of them and she didn't know which one hurt the more.

_"No!"_ she yelled in her mind. _"This is not the time to show weakness, this girl is a shark."_

With unheard of perkiness she grabbed Kouta's hand (which only flamed Lucy's fire further) and drug him to the kingyo sukui stand. Although they couldn't take the animals home with them, the vendor was kinder than the last one, and allowed them a discount just to fish for them. Both Lucy and Kouta were unsuccessful as they attempted to go for the larger fish near the bottom. Yuka came the closest to catching a smaller goldfish until that is the bottom of her papered net was violently ripped away. Darts proved to be Lucy's "specialty" as she gloated the same way Kouta did about the balsa wood game. Yuka's darts, no matter how close they came to the board, always flew off to the outer edges. She found that with this girl around she couldn't even mold takoyaki correctly (the more she tried the more phallic they came out, which made Lucy howl with laughter and Kouta blush with embarrassment).

"Stop fooling around Yuka-chan," Kouta told her as they walked to the wanage stand, the rectangular blocks with prized tied to them excited even Lucy.

"So…I just throw these rings onto the blocks and I win the prize?" She asked Kouta as the vendor (who appeared to be as, if not more, uncaring than the first vendor they had visited) handed her three smoothly carved wooden rings. Kouta nodded and explained the secrets of obtaining the best prizes that were positioned furthest from the throwing point. Lucy only wanted to hear his voice; his advice was appreciated but not necessary.

She wound up to throw the ring like a Frisbee but stopped, pondering how it would look if someone noticed the ring had suddenly stopped spinning. Placing her foot back and straightening her stance she tossed the ring with a gentle underhand swing. The ring had barely left her hand before a vector wrapped its fingers around it and carried it to the furthest prize, the one Kouta had said she go for.

_"This is a piece of cake, even this will impress Kou-"_

Her vector stopped and the disk went flying far past the block, which almost surprised the vendor as much as it did her.

"Huh…?" was the only word to escape her lips. It was impossible, how could her vector not reach that? It wasn't more than four, maybe five feet away. Surely they had been able to reach farther than that back in the classroom with those children. One more time, she just hadn't been concentrating enough.

This time it bounced off the block and landed right on top of a box with unsharpened pencils on it.

"'Grats kid, here ya go," the vendor said, clearly unimpressed by her prize. But that wasn't what upset Lucy. Not the asshole of a vendor, the crappy prize or even looking bad in front of Kouta.

The cousin had the gall to actually laugh at her misfortune. It would look bad to sever her arms from her body in front of Kouta she thought, she'd wait till she was alone.

Her deadly mindset was interrupted by a disgruntled groan from Kouta, and looking at his hand she could see why.

"I only have enough money left for one more game…" he moaned out, recounting the change over and over again. There was hardly any there, and all of them doubted this vendor would accept discounts. But Kouta smiled, gently taking Yuka's hand and opening it up, "Here. You go Yuka-chan."

Both Yuka and Lucy blinked, taken aback by this sudden generosity. After all the teasing he had done to her the last hour it was fairly surprising.

"Huh? But…oh no Kouta-kun…it's your money, you take a go at it," Yuka said with a blush.

"And it's my money so I can do whatever I want with it," he pushed her to the throwing line and rubbed the top of her head, "You've had bad luck all day, and I feel bad for teasing you so much. Now take it, please." And with that, dropped the coins into her hand.

Her heart beat so hard she thought she was having a heart attack. Kouta wrapped his arms around hers, grasping her hands and attempted to help her throw it, but she would have none of it. Of course, after Kouta did let go of her she became upset for wanting to show off. After taking the rings from the vendor, she decided to aim for one of the lower prizes that looked fun and practical. Carefully she aimed and tossed it for a block near the middle.

And halfway there it was swatted fiercely to the ground.

Yuka's eyes widened with shock, even Kouta was surprised. Lucy, however, wasn't. That intense feeling of joy quickly ran away from Yuka, and now, more than ever, those piercing eyes this new girl was looking at her with scared her to no ends. Trembling, she grasped the second of three rings and tossed it at the block.

And again an invisible hand slammed it to the ground.

Yuka looked at the ring that lay motionless on the ground. It was all so obvious now, everything that was happening. It was her. It was this pink-haired girl with the strange hat. She was doing this somehow. Yuka nervously looked at her from the corner of her eye, who was staring intensely into the prizes that were attached to the blocks.

"Please stop…" she whispered softly to her. Yuka expected her to be oblivious to what she was doing. Yuka expected her to look innocent and extremely passive. What she got, however, was more than she bargained for.

"No."

The statement was so blunt and harsh Yuka almost dropped her final ring. Only through Kouta's goading was she able to muster the strength to toss it at the lowest block there was. All of them watching her knew that the throw would never make it to the table the prizes sat on.

But Lucy continued to assert her dominance over her.

The ring was hit so hard away from her and at an ninety-degree angle that it knocked the vendor off of his stool completely when it hit him. Both Yuka and Kouta's mouth gaped open in shock as the vendor furiously crawled to his feet and pointed away into the crowds.

"Get the hell out of here you damn kids! Beat it now before I call the police!"

"Hey it was an accident! Yuka-chan didn't aim for you, she was aiming for the-"

"NOW!"

The final 'now' was all that was needed to send the three scattering to the four winds.

Yuka couldn't control herself anymore. Having to share Kouta, having all of her efforts to impress him go horribly wrong, being terrified of this strange girl and not knowing why. But she couldn't cry in front of Kouta, who had taken to try and comfort Yuka. The pink-haired girl just watched with immense dissatisfaction, like her efforts had all went in vain. Finally, when the girl had finally taken to try and distract Kouta from her, Yuka made her escape into the crowds of people.

"Where'd she go? Yuka?!" Kouta yelled when he realized that she had disappeared, "Yuka!"

"I think she ran off while we were talking," Lucy said, trying her damned hardest to sound sympathetic.

"She can be such a child sometimes, she cries too easily," he said frustrated, looking around.

"And Kouta-kun doesn't like girls like that, does he?"

The question took Kouta by surprise, even Lucy was amazed those words came out of her mouth. He looked at her, and thought about it for a moment, "Well it's not very cute…but I do still like Yuka-chan…" there was a pause, before he realized his company, "I mean I like you too! I'm real glad I got to see you today."

Lucy smiled, although truth be told her mind was somewhere else at the time. When Kouta suggested they split up to find her, she was more than happy to look for her alone.

After all. She knew exactly which way she went.

------------------

Yuka wept softly into her knees, no longer caring that this beautiful yukata of hers was getting ruined by the tears and dirt. Stupid Kouta. Stupid Yuka. Why couldn't she be more like this girl that Kouta brought along? It wasn't her fault she was cried so much…she just wanted to spend every minute possible alone with Kouta before he left.

"He. Might not. Come back. Next year…" she wheezed out, pushing her face farther into her knees. Sure he had promised her he would, but he also promised he would come to the festival alone with her.

Wait. Did he? He said he would come with her, but alone?

"Baka!" she yelled, "He knew that I wanted to go with just him!" It should have been obvious, the way she had been able to successfully avoid his daunting little sister for so long. Couldn't he tell this pink-haired girl to go away? He had done it so many times to her.

She cried some more, feeling stupid for getting so mad at him. She didn't matter to him; she probably wasn't as cute as this other girl. But wait…a noise? Someone is calling her name. _"Kouta…"_ she thought, he was the only one who would know she was gone. Desperately trying to wipe the tears away, she stood up and hardened her face. She would give him the talking-to of a lifet-

Her hardened face collapsed upon seeing Lucy, her evil, piercing eyes staring into hers. For a moment they stood at each other, Yuka's face rising in fear, Lucy's face rising with fury.

"Wh-What do you want?" Yuka asked nervously, pretending not to be scared of her. This was all for naught when a pencil flew out of nowhere and buried itself into the wall she leaned on.

"What does Kouta mean to you?" Lucy asked her as another pencil slid out of the box by an invisible force and aimed it straight at Yuka.

"What…are you AH!" This was not the answer Lucy looked for as another pencil flew next to her face, becoming dangerously close to her head.

"I'll ask you one more time, this time in a way you can understand it. Do. You. Love. Kouta." Upon finishing, the box that held the pencils fell to the ground but the remaining half-dozen or so pencils didn't.

"I…I…" A lump caught in Yuka's throat, was this girl going to hurt her if she said yes? Was she going to do it when she said no? Would lying let her go or make it worse? She breathed deeply and shallowly, her high-pitched voice amplified by her tightening larynx. Slowly, she said the word she wanted to say all along.

"Hai…"

Without a moment's thought the pencils launched at her, ripping apart her kimono on the sides and arms as they embedded themselves into the wall. This caused Yuka to scream in fright, hoping that someone might hear her and stop this. But no one came, no one came as Lucy walked up close to her, and invisible hands grasped her shoulders and squeezed them.

"It's good that you didn't lie to me, I hate it when people lie to me," Lucy said, drawing closer to Yuka while putting more pressure on her shoulders, "Because you told the truth, I won't kill you slowly, you'll die nice and quickly."

Yuka had been reduced to a bubbling mass of tears and snot, the pain in her shoulders and fear that gripped her was overwhelming. She began to feel claustrophobic, as if she was being contained in a tiny area by an invisible force. She felt something brush again the skin on her neck, and slowly she closed her eyes, whispering Kouta's name.

But nothing came.

Lucy had received a vision, something that had overpowered that prenatal instinct to decapitate this girl. It was Kouta's worried face as he called Yuka's name. It was his obviously pained expression at the loss of his cousin. This girl meant more to him than Lucy thought, killing her would cause him pain as well.

No! She has to kill her. Kouta couldn't love her if she was still alive.

But what if Kouta found out what she did? He would hate her, and that was much more painful than being alone.

He'll never find out, no one will tell him, she'd kill everyone who saw her.

But that would just make Kouta sadder! He has a strong affinity for regular humans!

She needs to die, her happiness comes first!

Kouta's happiness is more important to her.

_He'll be happy just being with you._

But what if he's not.

_Then he's disposable! You are better than him, he should be thrilled to be with you._

I don't want to force myself on him.

_He is a human! He can be easily replaced!_

No he cant…

_Human's lives are meaningless! They all need to be eradicated!_

"Kouta's life is not meaningless! I don't want to hurt Kouta I just don't!" She yelled, frightening Yuka in more ways than one. Lucy trembled as she leaned against the wall, overshadowing Yuka.

Yuka, who had momentarily stopped crying, looked up at this strange girl, who was now crying heavier than what she had. Tears dripped onto her face and yukata, and although Lucy was on top of her, that claustrophobic sensation was gone. The crying emitted tiny gasps from her as her mind raged an endless war with itself. Suddenly, Yuka spoke up.

"If…If you want to kill me that's fine…but…but…please don't hurt Kouta!"

Those words sent a shock wave of emotions through Lucy. So many feelings she had so many things she did and didn't want to do. What could she do?

She decided. The best thing for her. The best thing that would make Lucy the happiest.

"Get the hell away from me," she hissed through her teeth.

Yuka looked up at her, less frightened and more confused. She opened her mouth to speak, but Lucy wouldn't have it.

"GO NOW BEFORE I CHANGE MY FUCKING MIND!" And with that there was a loud crack and spray of dust and rocks. Yuka wasted no more time bolting away from her, back into the festival grounds and the uncaring masses that passed by.

Lucy watched her go, then looked back into the large indentation her vector had made. But she could hardly see them clearly; the tears had stained her vision to the core.

Yuka was overjoyed when she ran into Kouta immediately, nearly tackling him to the ground when she saw him. Over and over she yelled his name and wanted nothing more than for him to cradle and hug her, and he wanted nothing more than for her to let go.

"Yuka-chan stop! This is embarrassing, let go of me!"

"Kouta! Kouta! Kouta I was so scared! The girl, she came, and then she, and I don't know why but, WAHHH!" An exasperated cry left her mouth that brought about the full attention of the people around them.

"Yuka-chan…" he whispered, finally able to pry her off of him. He brought her to arms length and wiped the flowing tears away from her eyes, "You had me really worried!" He yelled with a huff, thoroughly glad she was all right, "I don't know what I would have done if something happened to you!"

This brought another spasms of cries and a hug that actually brought him to his rear this time. By this time, both him and Yuka were soaked with salty tears, as her mother and his father walked through the gathering crowd.

"There you two are!" His father exclaimed, "We've been looking all over for you."

"I think they've had enough excitement for one day, let's take them home."

"Onii-chan!" Kouta's little sister, Kanae, yelled as she poked her head from around her father's leg, "You had Kanae worried!"

Kouta looked at her face, which was madder that Yuka was getting more attention from him than she was. Although Yuka's crying had made the festival less enjoyable, he still didn't want to leave.

He had to say goodbye to his horned friend at the very least, wherever she was.

--------------------

Patiently, Lucy waited in the dark at the station that Kouta said he'd be at. Why? She didn't know. After what she did, after what she ALMOST did, he would never want to see her again. It was for the better she thought. She was a monster after all, she had finally decided. Kouta's kindness was more than appreciated, it was something that she would have killed for…and almost did. But she didn't deserve Kouta in any sense, and after what she did he would feel the same way. Restraining herself from jumping out of the bushes upon seeing him, she dug her teeth into her knees to stop from crying.

Lucy could hear every word they said, but the only person she focused on was Kouta and his cousin. She was solemnly sad that he was leaving, probably almost as much as Lucy was.

_"Whatever…" _she thought.

Her instincts to kill her had vanished, even though she harbored a deep hatred for his cousin. In fact, that little voice that had been telling her to kill him and his cousin had been silent since last night. That little person who goaded her to slaughter everyone that passed her was gone, for good she hoped. It wouldn't matter if it weren't though; she was going to die here soon, thankful for the brief moments that she knew Kouta.

"She's not coming…" he muttered. This caused Yuka to straighten up.

"Kouta stay away from her, I told you that she's ev-"

"And I told you not to call her that! You're just being jealous and it doesn't make you cute at all!"

"But Kouta…!"

"Stop it! Envy looks bad at girls, which is why I like her more than you."

Was this for real?! Lucy's heart jumped into her throat. He still liked her…more so than his cousin. She had to be dreaming, she must have fallen asleep.

"BAKA!" Yuka screamed at the top of her lungs, and with that ran away from the crowd. Her mother looked down on Kouta with a very upset look.

"That wasn't very nice Kouta-kun."

"But she's so annoying…being upset just because she's better at Yuka-chan in games."

His father bopped him on the head as punishment, "You don't really like this girl more than Yuka-chan, do you?"

With a red face Kouta looked away from them, "Only when she's like this…but I like them both the same really…"

Lucy watched with more interest than ever. It wasn't a dream; she had pinched herself several times and had yet to wake up. Okay, so maybe he didn't like her more than cousin most of the time, but Lucy had an advantage of being more the personality he liked.

And then the feeling set in. The feeling that we was leaving, for good probably. Her eyes moistened with the thought of never seeing him again, what would she do if that happened? Could she control her desire to kill without him? She stood up slowly, not enough so that they could see her though.

Lucy saw his sister ask if he liked her more than the other two, which to Lucy's relief he said a stern "no" that caused more angered looks from his aunt and father. What should she do? What could she do? There was nothing she could do that would stop him from leaving, every path her mind had thought always led to hurting Kouta and that was the last thing she wanted. She had to do something. She could lose him forever. It had become so hard to breathe anymore.

Kouta gave one last final look around, saddened that his friend was unable to see him off. He hoped for her safety, he hoped that she was all right more than anything else since she had left so suddenly. He hoped Yuka didn't scare her away. When his father's stern voice called for him, he turned away from Kamakura and took a footstep into the train station. He would have to come back next year; he would just have to.

"KOUTA!" A voice yelled out to him. He turned around and a smile came over his face. There she was, her hat off to show her horns that he had complimented her on a week ago. He could tell she was about to cry, which made him want to cry all the more.

Lucy knew what she had to do to see him again.

"My name is Kaede!" She yelled as she tried to hide the tears that poured from her eyes "Please come back next year! Promise me!"

Kouta waved to her, his smile as large as hers, "I promise!"

**END**

Author's Note: According to the manga, Kaede is Lucy's real name. So if I use Kaede in future chapters, rest assured I am speaking about Lucy.

My time writing will be spent between this and my Shuffle! fanfic, so updates may be longer than what I hope for. I had hoped for this chapter to be shorter than what it was, but I'm not changing it. Expect Chapter 2 in a week or two, ja ne!


	2. Experiment Lucy: Age 11

_Elfen Lied_ and its characters are property of outside companies; I claim no ownership of them.

**Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade:**

**June, XXX1 – Experiment Lucy Age 11**

On a warm June evening in the very outskirts of the Kanagawa prefecture, a remote house living room window flashed with bright, vibrant colors unknown to even a rainbow. The flashing lights separated the house from any other on the street, and the annoyed glances from neighbors that walked across it symbolized the family inside wasn't a particularly social one.

"Didn't I tell you to turn that off?!" A woman's piercing scream reverberated from the front door, scaring a young couple that just happened to be walking in front of it.

Inside the house, a young man of no more than fourteen was sprawled across an armchair, with a black controller in his hands, the wire connected to a game console underneath the television.

"Yeah yeah…" he muttered, showing no signs of disconnecting himself from the game.

The woman who had just yelled at her estranged son was young in body, but old in spirit. A thirty-five year old going on forty-four, she found the family dinner which her son only attended for five minutes and her husband found to be distasteful and boorish was ten times more excruciating to clean then it was to make.

"For the last time Ono turn that damn thing – Ichiro talk to your son! That damn thing is driving me crazy!"

Ichiro, a forty-two year old man going on fifty-seven, looked up from his newspaper at the dining room table. His first thought was to tell her to do something about it, the unagi was extremely dry and the rice overcooked. But the noise was annoying, and as much as he hated confronting his rebellious son, he found it his obligation as a parent to…

"_Thank the gods, someone's at the door,"_ he thought when he heard a soft knock. He was already halfway to the western-style storm door when his wife screamed at him to get it. Rubbing his eyes, he couldn't believe how tired he was this early. Whoever it was, he hoped he'd only have to act neighborly for a moment so he could turn his son's game off then go straight to bed.

But when he opened the door, nobody was there. At least he thought nobody was there. When he heard a soft cough, as if to grab his attention, he peeked down towards the ground. There she was, a young girl with pink hair and a wool cap, who barely rose above his waist.

"What can I do for you?" He asked in an uncaring tone. He didn't know this child and therefore had no reason to be neighborly to her.

The girl looked up at him, her eyes filled with sorrow, "Please sir…I was wondering if I could spend the night here. I've been wandering the area for some time now and…"

"Listen kid, I don't even know you. Why the hell should I let you into my house, much less spend the night? So you can steal my money or my wife's jewelry? Go home you little bitch, your parents are probably worried about you."

He let go of the storm door and slowly it began to close. Turning away, he began to walk more fiercely than before, wanting more than ever to just break his son's game in half. But the door didn't click shut. And when he looked back, noticing that something was stopping the door from closing. Even though the girl was still there, she wasn't the one who kept it open. Well, it didn't look like it was her…

"What did I tell you?" He said as the tone of voice increased, "Go home now before I call the…"

The door was ripped off the handles by an invisible force, which sent the man to his behind from the shock of what just happened. Looking at the hovering, crumbled door, then at the girl, he realized that her sweet, innocent and sorrowful face had transformed into a cruel, demented, evil shell of the young girl that was on his doorstep moments before.

"I'm sorry…I didn't hear you. I said I need a place to stay for the night. Or…" the door that hovered above her pressed tightly together, resembling a ball of trash paper, "I could stay until the police catch on…"

Ichiro's mouth moved like a broken automaton, large beads of sweat running down his face. The girl stepped into the doorway, closing the large wooden door behind her and setting the crumbled storm door inside, all with her invisible hands. He could hardly hear her footsteps over the beating of his own hearts. What could he do? She was getting closer to her, and his voice had lost him.

Suddenly, something very strong and powerful grabbed his leg, and he miraculously found his voice. It was only a quick yelp however, and all much too late, as he dug his fingernails into the carpet to stop himself from being dragged towards the girl.

His wife had heard the yelp above the loud explosions coming from her son's video game, and after furiously drying her hands, stormed towards the door. Oh how she hoped it was a "business partner", she had been looking for any reason to divorce him for two years.

That became completely unnecessary, upon viewing the mass amounts of blood that now claimed her a widow. In the mess of blood, clothes, and flesh was a young eleven-year-old girl who glared daggers into her eyes.

"I don't suppose you'd mind if I stayed a couple nights?" Lucy asked her with a disturbing smile.

There were no weapons in her hands, there wasn't anything except for her evil face and being drenched in blood that could mean she had killed her husband. Still, she was sure that she did.

In the living room, the boy completely fell out of his seat when his mother screamed for only a short second, and was immediately silenced. Lying on the ground, he listened for a moment, the dripping faucet and soft tapping of feet the only audible sounds.

"Oka-san…?" he asked nervously. No answer. He slowly got up and walked past the doorway leading to the door hallway. A quick peek couldn't hurt.

But it did. A fresh coat of blood covered one wall and the floor, and covered half of the ceiling and the other wall. The dripping faucet happened to be none other than the blood that ran from his mother's torso onto the floor, as it dangled helplessly in the air. His father was completely dismembered, and spread across the length of the hallway as if some disgusting designer had planned it. His eyes shrunk into his head at the grisly sight. Then he looked at Lucy.

His body plowed into the dining room table while his head careened off the kitchen sink.

-------------

Lucy took a whiff of the shampoo in the family's house. It was strong, strong enough to erase the pungent smell of blood that emanated from her. The water ran that ran over her body thoroughly washed most of the traces of blood that clung to her skin, she had to use a little elbow grease to get the older stains. Now how to clean that mess in the hallway? There would be more time for that later, it had been over a week since she felt the comfort of a hot shower, and she could take her time to enjoy it without fear of being caught.

Her thoughts turned to the family she had just slaughtered. They weren't happy, obviously they weren't. She had been watching them from a variety of locations the last day, the father was a busy-body who wanted nothing more than to get away from his wife and son, his wife was a temperamental hag who wanted nothing more than to get away from her husband and son, and their son was a lazy, rebellious drama queen, who also wanted nothing more than to get far away from all of this. Lucy thought, for a moment, that she did them a favor.

Then she wandered again…what had happened over the last year? For almost two months, she lived off stale food and swiping small items from convenience stores to survive. Then it started to get cold. She remembered the first time in more than two months since late summer that she barged into a small house that was directly on the border of Yokohama and Kamakura and asked the family, a couple no older (physically) than the one in here with no children. When they too refused her care, several times, she murdered them too. She remembered how…scared and horrible she felt afterwards. She just wanted someplace warm to stay and she ended up doing something so horrible as to kill them for it. Was it horrible? At the time it was, but now she was glad she did it, she could have frozen if not for their house. But she remembered being sick for days as she ate the large amounts of food and meals they had stored away in various places across the house. She couldn't even stay in the house during the day; the thought of those poor souls haunted her the longer she stayed in there. Incidentally, it was the longest she had ever stayed in one house (which was the reason that brought the concern of cleaning the mess in this current house's hallway). For months after she left that house, she sparingly killed, even attacked other human's in their houses. She relied on breaking into abandoned houses or large, heated stores to sleep during the night. When had her heart hardened, and that little voice that told her to kill returned? It had been gone for good she thought, after she restrained herself from killing a little girl. Kouta's cousin…

"KOUTA!" She screamed. Her feet wet from the shower, she barreled out of the shower and straight to the floor in a mad attempt to find a calendar.

"Itai…" she moaned as she grasped her head. Her body staggered and swayed as she forced herself up, finding the strength to run barefoot through a pool of blood into the kitchen, where to her luck a calendar hung. It was on June, but on what day?!

She ran again from the calendar into the quickly drying hallway. One of these people had to have a cell phone. The father?

"Lucky!" She yelled as she removed the cell phone from the soaked pants. Flipping the screen up, she pressed several buttons and searched desperately for anything that looked like a date. Her foot brushed against the hair of someone, probably the mother, so she took one arching step over it to avoid tripping. Lucy bit her bottom lip, she didn't have a damn clue how to work this contraption.

There! June fourteenth! Summer hadn't even started yet officially. The phone landed far away from her as she jumped and pranced around the house, singing Kouta's name loudly. One final squeal escaped her lips and she galloped passed the bloody hallway back into the shower. So much to do! She would have to leave early tomorrow to get to Kamakura as soon as possible, she didn't want to waste any time spent away from Kouta. She wasn't sure when he was coming back, but considering how late it had been last year it was almost certain that it would be the same this year! Oh god, if she'd already missed Kouta she would just die. She would…just…

She stopped several feet away from the bathroom door, the shower continuing to run. Looking back, she saw her bloody footprints had made one violent line dance across the house. Heart pounding, hands trembling and voice shaking, she walked back towards the hallway that a massacre had happened minutes before. When she looked inside, their faces, the faces of all the people she had killed over the past year all poured into her mind.

"What have I done…?" she strained to get those words out. Inadvertently, it felt as if she had just killed Kouta himself.

-----------------

With a knife, Lucy drew another slash mark into the trunk of the tree that watched over her dog's grave.

"_Five weeks…"_ she thought.

_He's not coming._

The day's only seemed to become longer with each unsuccessful day of waiting for him. She didn't dare move from this spot for long. Her first instinct was to wait for him in front of the train station, but without knowing when he would arrive or the kind of stares she would receive from being in front of a crowded section for so long, she found it a bad idea.

_He's forgotten about you._

No, her dog's grave was the best place. It was the first place they met, the place they met every time afterwards, the place that Kouta would remember. He would come, it would just require a little more patience on her part. After all, there was no definite time he gave her to when he would be back.

_He's already been here. Came early this year. Didn't even come to look for you or leave you a note._

It really wasn't so long. It wasn't like the beginning of the fall last year, goodness were those days harsh. When she wasn't crying she was as mobile as a vegetable. Only the thought of staying alive to see Kouta again kept her active. It was staying alive that forced her to kill all those people.

_He knows what you've done. That's why he won't come._

All those poor, innocent people…murdered simply to give her a comfortable place to sleep for the night. They hadn't done anything wrong, sure some of them may have been bad people, but did they deserve to die the way they did? She could say it was to survive until she was blue in the face, but the fact was she killed them. She killed them, and they could never come back.

_He hates you._

"Kouta…" she whispered softly into her knees, "Gomen…I'm sorry Kouta…"

The tears came forth from her eyes again. She mourned the lives of all those people she killed, she mourned for their families that would never get to see them again, and she mourned for herself. For her dying sanity and her failing heart. She mourned for her love, wherever he was. The only comforting thought she had was that ever since the incident on the outskirts of Kanagawa, that little voice that had told her to kill had been completely, and utterly, silent.

Bringing her head away from her arms and knees, she wiped the tears away from her eyes. It wasn't as late as it had been the last few weeks, but she was tired. She would call it a day today, and tomorrow she would be back to ponder Kouta's return. Wondering what they would do together, what new things she could see with him, what…

"Surprise!" A voice startled her as somebody's hands suddenly blinded her vision.

Had it been anyone else. Had he not had yelled before he covered her eyes, there was a good chance he would have been slaughtered on the spot.

But no. It was him. His voice was so comforting and his hands were so warm.

"Kouta…" she gasped out.

"Nope! Guess again!" He said quickly and mockingly. To him it was a fun game, at least, until Kaede turned around. Her eyes were drowning in tears, and her lip trembled so violently he could have sworn she was having a seizure. Before he could say anything, she leapt out at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tackling him to the ground. "Woah! Kaede stop! What are you doing?!"

Kaede was nothing but a blubbering mass of flesh and bone, practically strangling him in her arms and drowned him in her tears. So many things she wanted to say to him and in so little time. She had to apologize for everyone she hurt, she had to ask for his forgiveness.

But now, she only wanted to be embraced by him, overwhelmed with joy that he remembered her.

--------------------------

It took Kaede a long time to settle down to a normal tone of voice, although she continued to sniffle and let out a sob every now and then. For the most part Kouta had no idea what had happened or what was going on, did sneaking up on her upset her that much? He couldn't imagine how it would; but then again this was the second time he's gotten that reaction in the last week.

"I never thought you'd be such a crybaby," Kouta said finally free of the guilt of comforting her, "You're almost as bad as Yuka."

Kaede shot him a glare that signified she did NOT want to be muddled into the same category as her. But he was right, no matter how much she told herself earlier that she wouldn't cry upon seeing him she knew deep down that she would. Boy did she cry.

When Kaede finally got a grip on herself and settled down, she peeked up at Kouta, "So…(sniff) when did you get in?"

"A couple days ago," he said, uncertain of how to answer that question, "I stopped by yesterday but you weren't here. I figured if I missed you today that I'd leave you a note."

Kaede sniffled, "Really?"

Relieved that she believed him, he exclaimed in a loud voice, "Really! Look I even have a note here." He turned away from her for a second to pull out a folded note tucked into the back pocket of his shorts. He was telling the truth, written in black and white was a message to her saying when he'd be able to return to this spot next. Kaede felt like she was going to cry again, and Kouta wasn't sure if he could handle it again.

"You-You're not going to cry again are you?!" He asked in a panic. She shook her head, and wiped the tears away from her eyes.

"No I'm not…I'm…just so happy that Kouta remembered me…" she smiled at him, feeling a calming heat rise in her cheeks that had not been there for a long time.

"_Did she always look this cute?"_ Kouta asked himself as he too blushed deeply. The following silence didn't last long with Kaede breaking the barrier by asking what he had been up to.

Kouta was more than happy to tell her all about his experiences over the past year. His sister, Kanae, had embarrassed him by following him to his school and yelled a fellow female classmate for talking to Kouta (Kaede tried to get her name but Kouta said it wasn't important). He got into a fight later in the year with a couple kids who were picking on his sister (again, she asked for names but he wouldn't disclose them). A zoo was brought up again, which eventually lead to a side conversation about visiting the same zoo they did last year. Kouta could have went on and on for hours if he wanted to, and Kaede could have listened and laughed for hours if not for the question…

"So what did you do?"

Her mouth gaped open in shock of the question, she blinked twice. How could she answer this question? She had thought so long and hard about what her and Kouta would do now that they had more time together, she all but forgot about her year.

Of course her year was horrible. Living in hunger the first quarter of the year, and then resorting to breaking and entering until finally murder for a couple days of relaxation in a warm house. No matter how hard she tried to see her actions as justifiable, there was no way she could. Remembering full well the promise they had made last year, she bowed her head in shame.

"Kouta…what would you say if…I told you I hurt some people?"

Something about the way Kaede looked at him made Kouta think that she might have actually done someone wrong, "Why would you want to hurt anyone?"

"I wouldn't!" That was a lie, "At least…not at first I…" she trailed off, unsure if Kouta believed she hurt someone or not, "I was just scared…and alone…I didn't know what else to do. I didn't mean to but, I just….really…"

It was terrifying for her to look at his face, who scowled with frustration. There was no denying it now, Kouta had known what she had done, and now he was going to hate her and Kaede would never.

With one quick flick of his finger he seemed to force out all of the sad feelings in her mind, although it did hurt.

"Baka!" He yelled, "You know it's not okay to hurt anyone!"

Rubbing her head, she felt kind of peeved at him. Not for flicking her in the temple, but for telling her what she already knew, "Wakarimashita…but…"

"No buts." Kouta gently grabbed her underneath the arm and helped her up, brushing off her dirt-soiled skirt and knees, "I don't want to hear anything about hurting someone again, alright?" Kaede nodded, surprised how well he was taking it, "Now then…" he held out his hand to her. Like a puppy looking at the mess it just made, she looked at his hand, then at his face. He was blushing slightly, almost embarrassed to do this, "Come on. Aren't you going to walk with me back to oba-san's house?"

This was it for Kaede, she could die right here and she couldn't be any happier. She tried to act reluctant to take his hand but there was no hiding her glowing face as her fingers wrapped around his and hand-in-hand they strode off away from her dog's grave.

---------------

For the first time in ages, Kaede couldn't remember having this much fun just walking and talking with someone. It was as if she had lived for this very moment as both her and Kouta swung their clasped hands high into the air and high again on the rebound, laughing and giggling as the other tried to break the others grip. There was no breaking Kaede's and she didn't try to break his grip on her.

"Kouta! When can we see each other again?" She asked excitedly. The day was nearly gone and Kouta was nearly home, so she knew the both of them would go their separate ways. But not for long, hopefully.

"Etto…" he placed a finger to his chin as he thought about it, "Tou-san and oba-san wanted to go to the beach tomorrow so I'll be there most of the day…and then we're coming back here to open some watermelons…how about the day after that?!"

Two days, much longer than Kaede had hoped to wait. But she had waited longer for him, and she always knew she could "accidentally" run into him if she got really lonely. Still, with cheeks puffed out and a tone that told him she didn't approve, she said "Wakarimashita."

"Don't be like that," Kouta said, worried he had upset her. When Kaede didn't immediately respond he began to feel bad about upsetting her. That all changed when he saw her peek at him from the corner of her eye and smile slightly. She pulled down the bottom eyelid with her finger and stuck her tongue out at him, which caused them both to laugh.

"Ah! There's my house!" He yelled and pointed to the Maple Leaf Inn (to Kaede's surprise and delight, thinking of how an inn was named after her).

"C-Chotto matte…" Kaede said as she quickly fell to her knee and began to "tie" her shoelace. It didn't actually become untied, and there was nothing in Kaede's mind that told her she was in the wrong for keeping him a couple minutes…

"Wouldn't it be easier to let go of my hand Kaede?"

A couple seconds longer to herself. When she had pushed the shoe-tying limitation she stood back with a perky smile and immediately seized his hand. Her smile disappeared as the Maple Leaf Inn became taller and taller to the both of them, eventually she dragged behind so much that Kouta had to stop in the sidewalk so they didn't break their grip.

"Kaede-chan…" he said, half-flattered and half-irritated, "Would you like to come inside and stay for a little while longer? I'm sure my father and aunt wouldn't mind."

What did she love more? That he was so comfortable around her now that he could call her –chan, or that he had invited her to spend more time with him in his own house?

She smiled, blushing, "Hontoni? That would be…be…"

As they rounded the corner to the inn, the Japanese architecture reflecting the setting sun, Kaede was surprised (and upset) to find a girl no bigger than Kaede herself, sitting on the front step of the inn, looking exhausted and on the verge of tears. Immediately, Kaede recognized her.

By the look on Yuka's immediate reaction to seeing them, Kaede figured she had seen the both of them holding hands. When the look of shock turned slightly to fright, she must have seen Kaede herself scowling at her.

"Tch!" Kaede scoffed, low enough so not even Kouta could hear her. She felt his body shift to wave at Yuka, but the mood was already lost, "Gomen nasai Kouta-kun. But I really should be going."

"Ehh?! Do you have to?" He said with a disappointing tone. This made leaving him ever harder, but among other things, Kaede didn't want to deal with his cousin right now.

"Uh-huh…ka-san will probably get worried if I'm out too late, and I don't know how to get a hold of them so…" she didn't want to say the last part, there wasn't anything needed to be said.

Kouta could tell there was something Kaede wanted to do. She kept looking at him, then away to the ground. She was being very hesitant, the way he'd seen the actors on soap's doing the same thing. When she raised her hand to touch his cheek, or what he thought she reached for, he flinched. Surprisingly enough, she patted him on the shoulder, almost as if they were long-time drinking friends. Her face gave off her disappointment in herself, but before he could say anything she smiled and gave a "Ja ne!" When she was well out of sight, Yuka finally got up the courage to yell his name and rush to his side.

In turn, when Kaede couldn't see Kouta or the Maple Leaf Inn for that matter, she finally let loose her sadness of leaving Kouta. The tears came but not the crying, she knew she would see him again in a couple days and they would have the next week and a half together. It was for the better, if she had gone in she would never have left. In fact, she was more upset that she didn't get up the courage to kiss him.

----------------

"That one's a log! No that one is!" Kaede yelled as she leaned over the crocodile pit and pointed at the floating figures in the water.

"Kaede-chan, don't lean so far over the edge," a worried Kouta told her, tugging slightly on her shirt. She obliged his request and jumped down, grabbing his hand and dragging him to another section of the zoo. He had trouble keeping up at first but only due to the initial shock of the pull. They bolted to the zebra's, lions, and other animals Kaede missed on her first trip last year, and repeating some of her favorites from the year before. When it started to get late, they realized how hungry they were.

"Two please," Kouta asked an elderly lady running a cotton candy stand, who with a smile handed the both of them two large fluffy pillows of cotton candy. Kaede looked at it nervously, unsure of how to eat it.

After watching Kouta eat it, she peeled off a flake and placed it in her mouth. At once the overwhelming taste of sugar bombarded her tongue and gently trickled away.

"It's gone!" She yelled, feeling as giddy as ever. With a nod from Kouta, the both of them dug into their own…

"Let me have a piece of yours!" Kouta yelled, leaning over to grab Kaede's.

"Wah! Eat your own!" She said despite the fact she too leaned in to grab a piece of his. The cotton candy struggle lasted for several moments, the both of them and several on-lookers getting a kick out of it, and the rest of the day went as well as it had the last several hours. Until…

Kouta and Kaede huddled together in the fiercely cold winds of the surprise storm that had, from nowhere, assaulted the coastline.

"Are you cold Kaede…" Kouta asked her as she buried her head into his chest to protect herself from the cold. She shook her head.

She was half-lying of course, the both of them were wet from the heavy rain and the wind had a dangerous chill to them. But there was something to be said about the warmth of another person.

"Are you?" She asked.

To her surprise, he nodded, "A little. But as long as you're not cold."

This warmed Kaede all the more, but not enough unfortunately. Then she got an idea.

Extending her vectors from her body, she formed a tiny half-circle with them and immediately solidified every one of them. Although she could feel touch, pain and temperature were unknown to them, and the protection from wind and slight protection of rain helped considerably.

"Hey it's clearing up!" Kouta observantly said. Even though she knew he had no idea she was doing it, in effect he felt like he was praising her. "Where's that damn bus?"

Kaede loosened her grip on Kouta's shirt, "I wonder if a tree is blocking the road."

"It still shouldn't take that long, there has to be other roads leading up here."

When a pair of headlights rounded a corner and flashed in their eyes, they shone with excitement. Kaede dismissed her vectors, to which brought a strong force a wind that nearly knocked them on the ground, and they jumped from the bench to the sidewalk. Unfortunately much to their dismay it turned out to be a car, a dark red sedan.

And much to their surprise, it stopped.

"What are you two kiddies doing out this late at night?" The driver asked as he rolled down the window. He was older, in his early to mid thirties from what the both of them could tell. His face was jagged, more so than they'd ever seen a Japanese man's face, and he smiled in such a way that Kaede knew he was hiding something.

After all, she had smiled like it so many times before.

"Hop on in, I'll take you to a nice warm place."

Kouta knew what his father had told him countless times over and over again, never get in a car with strangers. But this storm was refusing to let up and the both of them were wet and very cold.

"Kouta…" Kaede said as she glared at the driver, "Let's wait for the bus. I don't think we should-"

As she was speaking a crackle of lightning hit a nearby telephone pole that send a shower of sparks towards them and the car. While Kouta yelped, Kaede screamed and jumped into Kouta, more terrified of the initial shock of the noise.

"Don't got much else you can do now, is there?" The creepy driver asked them, continuing to smile.

Kouta knew what he had to do, "Okay! But don't think of trying anything funny!"

"Kouta!" Kaede yelled, "Don't be a he-" Another bolt of lighting and blast of thunder made her yelp again, which made the driver smile all the more.

It was only a year ago that she found her vectors could tear humans in half, and now she stared into the back of his head hoping to rapidly develop heat vision.

"Where to kiddy's?"

They told them where to go and with all-too-fast assurance, replied with he knows where the Maple Leaf Inn was. Did he really? Kaede had serious doubts.

"Kouta…" she whispered, gripping his shirt and leaning next to his ear, "A-About the other day…what if someone tries to…to…" she thought her next word carefully, the wrong one could deny her the pleasure of ripping this mans throat out, "…to hurt me?"

He thought about it for a second, "I'd rather not see Kaede hurt anyone…" the driver chuckled, they weren't whispering soft enough, "But I don't want to see Kaede-chan hurt either."

His blush only made her blush, and she scooted closer to him still. She dared this man to try anything to either of them. Secretly she hoped that he would prove her wrong and make her feel foolish.

The rain that splattered against the windows was calming, and despite the cars ragged appearance was a fairly smooth ride. Comfortable cloth seats made it easy for anyone to snuggle right in and fall asl-

"Wake up Kouta!" Kaede hissed into his ear. He snapped awake for a moment, a sliver of drool running down his mouth.

"I'm sorry Ka-" he yawned loudly, "-chan…I'm just really tired…" And with that he collapsed against her shoulder and closed his eyes one more time. She shook him and hissed his name again, but to only receive a jumble of nonsensical words. It wasn't until she took the time to realize how close he was to her, just how handsome he looked. For a while she forgot where she was and, gently leaned her forehead against his. When his head rolled so did hers, until her head rested on top of his. His wet hair tickled her nose while her lips pursed themselves inward to prevent her from kissing him. Why would this guy what they did back here? It wasn't like she was going to kiss his lips or his cheeks, but the thought made her try to reposition his head to no avail. Just on the top of the forehead, she had seen it in several TV shows and cartoons, and she always wondered how it felt…how it tasted like…. She puckered her trembling lips, just on the forehead, it's not that big of a-

They went by the Inn so fast that Kaede hardly had time to recognize it. But it was there if only for a second, it was imprinted in her mind, everything about Kouta was imprinted into her mind.

"That was the Inn! Kouta wake up!" She shook him again, he stirred but never woke.

"No it's not," the driver said quickly and defensively.

Bull. Kaede wrapped Kouta's arm around her neck and hoisted him up, "Stop the car. We want to get out."

"I'm sorry but I can't let you kids off in this weather."

More bullshit. The rain had considerably let up since they got in the car, "I said stop the car, we can walk the rest of the way."

There was a pause, not in the driving, but between Kaede and the driver's conversation. When he came to a stoplight not long after that, he looked back at Kaede and she heard a click of the door locks.

"Well…YOU can get out if you want to. But the boy stays with me."

That was the only thing she needed to hear. The light had no sooner turned green than she launched her vectors outwards and gripped a hold of the man's neck in a breath-taking "oof". His hands grasped at invisible ones that he just couldn't seem to touch, and if not for his foot that was firmly planted on the brake, would have sent them rolling into the intersection. He saw Kaede's face in the rear-view mirror, who glared daggers into his skull.

"Park it." Obviously she meant the car and loosened her grip on him slightly so he could obey her. He did with amazing speed. "Get out." When he was hesitant on this command, she tightened his grip on his neck that sent him barreling out of the car and face first onto the street. Finally free of her grasp, he coughed and hacked his way from the car, crawling on all fours. Until he heard a second car door slam that is.

Another invisible hand grabbed tightly onto his ankle, and with the pressure she forced on it he thought she was going to rip it off. She wanted to, but didn't. Instead, with amazing force she lifted him nearly two meters off the ground until he swung like a pendulum, and immediately she whipped him back and slammed him face first into the ground. That was more than enough to get her point across, now _it's time to put the fear of God into him._

With a looser grip she grabbed his ankle again and lifted him in the air to dangle like a piece of meat. His beaten and bloody face spit droplets of blood on her clothes and neck, and she held him like that until he opened his eyes to meet hers.

"The only reason I didn't kill you is because I have no idea how to work this thing," Kaede pointed to the car, "I will, however, rip your lungs out if you do not take him home this instant." A second vector gripped at his left pectoral and squeezed, causing him to screech in pain, "And don't think I can't do it."

"Wakarimashita!" he yells were wrought with pain, "Wakarimashita!"

"One more thing…" In an act of mockery, she reached out with her real hand and gripped onto his nose hard. She had also seen enough movies to know how to do this properly, and she snapped her wrist away from him to hear the cartilage snap. Again he howled in pain and began to thrash violently in her grip. She dropped him, satisfied that he realized the situation he was in and opened both doors with her vectors. When she sat next to Kouta, who was still sound asleep, she brushed aside his hair and stared lovingly into his face. Her compassionate stare altered when the driver, whom Kaede knew without a doubt was a pervert, closed his car door shut. From behind his seat she could see his entire body tremble, so much that he could hardly shift the car into reverse. When he peeked in the rear view mirror, Kaede was satisfied to see how much blood was covering his face, and smiled.

-------------

"Kouta, wake up we're home…" Kaede's gentle voice cooed into his ear. He stirred some more, finally getting up after seeming what was a lifetime of sleep. Not enough in his opinion. He yawned and felt Kaede lift his arm around his neck, opening the door soon afterwards and tasting the salty air of the receding storm. When his feet finally touched the ground, the door slammed shut, and the car's tires screeched. It was gone before he knew what happened.

"Ay, one, five, you, double-you, nine…" Kaede whispered. When he asked what that was she said it was nothing.

The Inn was a comfortable sight to the both of them. More so to Kaede than Kouta for reasons he would never know. Even Yuka's tiny face peeking at them through the door didn't displease Kaede.

--------------

The following days went by too quickly, for the both of them. Every day when Kouta went home she worried incessantly what she would do when he left. Again she thought of ways to keep him here, but they all lead to roads she had promised him she wouldn't tread. Finally, the day came when he left and knowing how much he hated it, sucked up her tears.

"You'll…You'll be back next year won't you?" She asked. He nodded in reply, "And…and we'll meet here as before…okay?" Again, a nod. Neither of them wanted to say much, Kouta would have preferred that she met him at the train station rather than her dog's grave, but he figured she couldn't keep her composure if she saw him left. Either way, he dreaded as much as she did to see leave.

Kouta scratched the back of his head, the silence was deafening. He wanted to stay a little longer but his father and sister were waiting. Something, just say something!

"I got to get going Kaede…" he smiled at her nervously hoping she would smile as well. Her face was hidden from him, "I had a really great time this summer, so, I hope you'll be around again…"

Her tackle almost brought him to the ground. For a moment he thought she was going to start sobbing again, but she was stronger than that, instead taking fast, shallow breaths into his chest. This was the only thing she could think of to keep him.

"Do…do you have to leave…?" She asked, "Can't…can't you stay here and live with your cousin? We could see each other every day, and, and I'd never have to be sad again…"

This time Kouta felt the tears well up in him. It wasn't like he didn't want to stay, but he missed his mother and friends at home. What he wanted to ask was for her to come with them, but he knew that could never happen. He noticed that she had detached herself from his chest, and removed her wool hat that hid her horns from the world. Her eyes screamed of sadness, ready to break loose the dam that held her tears. Sorrowfully, she shook her head and asked.

"No?"

Kouta looked at the ground, shaking his head as well, "No…"

Their eyes met one more time, both doing poorly to hide their anguish from the others. Kouta felt as a man he shouldn't cry in front of a girl, and Kaede felt that Kouta would hate her if she cried. Being the case, that was the one thing they wanted to do most of all.

Except…

It was fast, and completely unexpected on Kouta's part. Her sorrowful eyes disappeared underneath her thin pink eyelids and for a minute all became a blur underneath his tear-soaked eyes. He hadn't prepared himself for it but how quickly it was over with neither did Kaede. That is not to say he didn't like it.

Slowly…Kaede's soft, pink lips separated from his.

She bolted away from him, about twenty meters away leaving him in a state of complete shock. When she turned around, he could see the large drops of salty tears launch from her cheeks, finally letting loose from all the frustration she had built up. She didn't want to see him cry, at least not for very long.

"You'd better come back next year! You just better!"

And so, this time, she refused to see the back of his head disappear into the darkness. She didn't want to spend the next year thinking only about his fleeting image, just the feel of his soft kiss. It would prove to be a long year for her…

_Shall we look for a place to stay?_

**END**

Author's Note: Due to time restraints coming up, I will be unable to proofread this fully. I apologize then for any and all grammatical and spelling errors I made in this draft and hopefully will fix them at a later date.

I leave for training in less than a week. By that time, I hope to have chapter 14 of _Shuffle!Hope_ up, and chapter 3 of _Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade_ posted for everyone's enjoyment on I do not know if I will be allowed computer access at Camp Grafton in North Dakota, but expect at least a month between chapter 3 and chapter 4 of _Neue Pfade_. If you're following _Shuffle!Hope_, a month between 14 and 15.

Chapter 13 of _Shuffle!Hope_ is in the process of being proofread. I hope to have it up by Thursday.

Chapter 3: Lucy struggles with the harshness of winter, and with no place to keep herself warm, she might perish with Kouta on her mind.


	3. Experiment Lucy: Age 12

Disclaimer: _Elfen Lied_ is a property of outside companies, I in no way claim ownership over it or its characters.

Note 1: In the course of writing **Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade**, I am bound to make mistakes in spelling in grammar. Therefore, I ask you the readers to write to me any changes that need to take place and any errors I have made in the process of writing this story, thank you.

Note 2: I will maintain on my profile page, a daily schedule of the progress of my works. If you are interested in how far I am on a particular story, by all means please visit my profile page.

**Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade:**

**January, XXX2 – Experiment Lucy Age 12**

A fire. Just a small one. Something to warm the fingers, the toes even. Just something.

Whoosh. A gust of icy wind rolled over the ground where a thin sheet of snow covered the immediate area, and on the backside of a small little girl with a ratty wool hat. That was it, the last match. The paper and twigs laid at her feet became a pile of trash that scattered with the next gust of wind.

"No big deal…I'm not that cold anyway…" Lucy muttered as she bundled herself in tighter, although it wasn't by much.

She looked outwards to the inner city, the bright lights flickering in the darkness that covered Japan. There was no snow; at least not enough to be visible against the nightly illuminations, but it was still dreadfully cold.

"There could have at least been snow…" Lucy muttered again, as her blue lips began to quiver, "Might've been fun…"

Her thoughts wandered to Kouta and Hokkaido. Being the Northern-most island of Japan, they must have plenty of snow. She could see Kouta and herself, laughing and playing together. The two of them pushing the other into snowdrifts and throwing snowballs at them and Kouta's friends…possibly Lucy's as well too. The voice goes away when Kouta's nearby; it's scared of him that's the only explanation. With Kouta nearby…maybe she could stop hating humans entirely.

"_Not possible,"_ she could have sworn she heard someone that sounded like her chuckle.

Lucy hated it, but the voice was right. She couldn't stand looking at any of them, only Kouta. Why? Why was this nagging doubt of all those who were not she or Kouta so loud?

With no backrest to support her, her tired head leaned backwards as she closed her eyes, eventually taking her entire body with her. She was so tired and so cold; all she wanted to do was lie there and go to sleep.

They say that if you fall asleep when you're this cold that your eyelids freeze shut, and you'll never wake up again. In Lucy's mind, that didn't sound like a bad idea. Closing her eyes completely, she felt her body begin to go quickly go numb by the whipping wind. The sounds of the howling gales grew softer and softer, and for a moment she could have sworn that she heard footsteps slapping against the hard ground. How wonderful it would be if Kouta had come to save her.

But that was a pipe dream at best. If he were here, he would save her. If he were here, she could die completely happy. But for now, she was more than satisfied that since his last departure, she had remained faithful to their promise. That no matter how much that voice pushed and stabbed her, she had not even touched a human.

Feeling her body lifting from the ground, her last thought was of Kouta and if she would meet him in Heaven. That is, if God loved dicloni as much as he did humans…

-----------------

As if awakening from a dream, Lucy wearily opened her eyes. Where was she? It was so warm. Heaven? Was there any place in Heaven for someone like her, dicloni or not?

She stifled a laugh, and felt the warm air around her suddenly increase in temperature. _"What a silly notion…"_ she thought.

Indeed it was. God loved humans, of which she was certain she was not one of. If God made humans perfect, than her kind must make Him jealous. No, this was Hell. Certainly it was. The heat had increased greatly, to the point where it was almost unbearable. Soon, the devil would appear and she would be tortured for eternity. Raising her hand out of instinct to shield herself from the heat, she awaited the worst. And immediately brushed against the hottest thing she had ever felt in her life.

"ITAI!" She yelled as she bolted upright, large droplets of tears welling in her eyes. After closing her eyes to stop the tears, Lucy stuck her fingers in her mouth one after another and began to cool and disinfect them with her saliva. She sniffled a couple times, sounding much like the child she resembled as she continued to suck on her fingers.

"Ah you're awake I see," a deep, hoarse voice called to her from across the room. Paying no attention to her surroundings, Lucy wheeled back onto her feet and backed away from the area the voice emanated and summoned her vectors. "Watch it!" the man yelled, "You're going to knock that over!"

On cue of those words, the heel of her foot jerked upwards after hitting something hard only a foot above the ground, and she was catapulted backwards across the kotatsu and onto the hard mat. She heard the sounds of liquids spilling next to her, and even the painful cracking of ceramic tableware not much further away. But when she heard the man's clothing shuffle and his earth-vibrating footsteps, she wheeled onto her bottom to face him.

"Don't come near me!"

"What?! Oh shut up kid, I've had a long day and-"

"Come any closer and I'll kill you!"

This comment seemed to startle the man for a moment before he burst into laughter. Lucy…amused him. "You're funny little girl, I'll give you that much…" The man turned on his heels to the area where Lucy had lay moments ago, "You're a little too young for my taste…" he eyed her, "And too stringy."

Was he joking? His face didn't give any indications that he was, but such an absurd comment couldn't have been serious. When he finished bundling up the blanket and mat, he took them and himself to the corner he was previously in and sat down, wrapping the blanket around his skinny body.

"Lighten up kid," he said, reassuring her thoughts, "And go home. However bad you may think it is now will only worse out here. You want to act like a grown-up you have to grow up first." And with that, the man threw the blanket over him and rolled away from Lucy, "Don't be here when I wake up or I'll call the cops."

There was no reason for him to say anything more; in fact, he could have stopped after "Go home." Lucy didn't want to stay there any longer with this odd, stupid human, and she certainly had no reason to.

"Wakarimashita!" She exclaimed loud and proud, hoping to indicate her desire to leave. Was her hat still on? It was. The clothes she wore earlier? Those too. After taking a quick glance around to see if there was anything little she could nab from him; she forcefully stomped out of the small apartment and slammed the door behind her.

Three hours later…

The man, comfortably asleep, wrapped up in his blanket and his futon, was awoken by the soft, repeated knocking at his door.

"_It figures whenever I fall asleep…"_ he thought to himself as he wearily pushed the heavy blanket off of him. The knocking continued, still as soft and gentle as the first time he heard it, but loud enough for him to hear it.

"I'm coming…" he mumbled as he dragged his tired feet towards the door. With the clicking of the lock and the creaking of the door hinges, he looked down.

"_I knew I should have let things be…"_ was his only thought as he looked upon Lucy's tiny and pathetic frame, shivering madly and glaring a mock hatred into his eyes.

"Wh-Wh-Where have you been?" She asked as if it was his fault she was out there, "I-I've been here f-for an hou-hou-hou…" Being unable to speak the final syllable, Lucy just stood there and enjoyed the slight comfort of the radiation emitting from his apartment.

"I don't need this kind of grief kid, and I certainly don't need people asking why a forty-something middle-aged man is letting children unaccompanied into his apartment. So why don't you go home…?"

But Lucy cut him off, "I d-d-don't have one…" In a sense, it was humorous to watch this tiny girl act so tough yet at the same time beg for something to warm her up, "I was a…bandoned, when I was y…y…young and I've been on my own ever s-s-s…since."

When the stuttering child finally finished, the man could only stare at her with the same, cold, uncaring eyes that she stared at him with. But did either one truly not care about the situation they were in? They just stared at each other, seeing which one would back down first, whose stubbornness would conquer the others, who had the weaker heart.

"S-So…are you going to let me in or wh-wh-what?"

Apparently, the man had the weaker heart.

He moved aside and apathetically stretched a hand into his apartment, "Only for one night, two at the absolute most. I do not need people saying that I'm a pedophile."

Without a smart-aleck response (she was much too cold for that), Lucy forced herself to walk, not run, into the warm apartment and sit mere inches away from the tiny radiator that emitted such glorious heat.

It was the second time she had been in here, but now was when she truly took note of what this place, and its owner, looked like. The apartment was only a two-tatami mat with a small, walk-in kitchen with a rusty stove and old refrigerator, and a lavatory that could barely hold one person. The floors and walls had their spots of dirt and stains, as did the ceiling, just barely noticeable. The apartment wasn't a decent place by any means of the imagination, but it certainly was livable, as there was no draft from outdoor and seemed pretty insulated.

Then Lucy's gaze fell upon the man, who had just situated himself in his corner that Lucy had found him when she woke up in this place. He was old, that much was certain. Probably more so than what he had said aloud, or at the very least his spirit was. His hair was short and thin with a mouse-brown tint to it; probably the last remaining warriors before gray completely took over. His skin was dry and a bit flaky, but he seemed at one point that he was a handsome man, with a chiseled jaw and an athletic build. Unfortunately for him, it seemed as if those days had long passed as his movements now screamed of a man hell-bent on misfortune's path. And here, Lucy had thought that all human adults had lived the sweet-life while she, a dicloni, was forced to beg for scraps like an animal. Taking the warm, cozy blanket he had thrown in front of her, the only thing besides the kotatsu and futon that didn't look half-broken, she scooted away from the radiator and wrapped herself up tightly in it. And with a final glare at the man, to make sure he wasn't going to try anything, she closed her eyes and slept well for the first time in months.

**March XXX2- Experiment Lucy Age 12**

"Tadaima…" Noboru muttered as he walked into his apartment. For the past three months he had been used to doing this ever since a tiny, blue faced appeared on his doorstep. And everyday, he would find that same tiny face huddled over his radiator and be greeted with a less than enthusiastic "okairinasai". But today, there was no response.

Noboru looked around his apartment, was that little girl really gone this time? Did the argument they had the night before finally forced her to leave?

He scoffed, "It figures. Didn't even wait till I got home, the rotten little-"

"I'm right here," she muttered as the toilet sputtered with the sound of flushing water. "If you're going to jump to conclusions at least be sure the person is out of the room before you insult them," she said with a mocking "I-heard-what-you-said" tone. "Okairinasai ojii-yarou."

And everyday, she would be sure to start his fire by calling him that ridiculous name.

"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" He said as he flung his coat over the counter of his kitchen, "And I thought you were leaving? I was under the impression that you were ready to be gone from here."

Lucy wrapped her knees into her chest, greatly enjoying the warmth of the radiator, "It is still much too cold outside, tomorrow for sure."

"'Tomorrow for sure' she says," he whispered under his breath. It had been tomorrow for over two months now. When was that tomorrow going to come? "Sure you are…" he added as a final rebuttal.

Either Lucy didn't seem to hear him or she didn't care with what he said. Instead, she just sat next to the radiator and basked in its warmth. The winter months had finally come to an end but the bitterness that it drug with it still hung around much like Lucy to Noboru's place.

Noboru himself sat down on the other side of the room, although they still weren't very far apart and stared at the back of her head. If there was one thing more peculiar than her wishy-washy attitude about leaving, her cocky mouth or the fact that she hardly ever left this apartment, it was that damn hat of hers.

"Nani?" She asked without turning around, "Is there something wrong with my head?"

At first he was startled by this comment, or rather, how she knew he was staring at her head. But he didn't comment on the eyes in the back of her head, rather, inflect upon the issue at hand, "I was just wondering kid…what's the hat for?" The word 'hat' sent a shockwave through her body, which she tried to act like it didn't happen. It only made Noboru more curious, "You've been wearing it for months now. I don't think I've even seen you take it off to wash, that thing must be disgusting by now." He leaned in on his hands and knees, there was more to it than just a memento from a family member or friend, and despite the awkward situation he was heading for, his curiosity got the better of him, "Just take that nasty thing off so we can…"

Lucy immediately reacted when she felt his hand, slamming her back against the wall, dangerously close to the radiator. With both of her hands she gripped the bottom of her wool hat, pulling it down so fiercely that she felt it was about to rip the threads. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! Reaching out and grabbing a girl's clothing like that, I should scream rape right now!"

_"What you should do is rip off his…"_

"SHUT UP!"

"I didn't say anything!" Noboru yelled back as the blood in his body rose to his head, "And if I had known that you would be such a child over something so stupid as a hat, then-"

"Kouta's hat is not stupid!" Lucy returned fire, her face too boiling over with fury.

"I don't care whose hat it is! And I…you…GRAAAH!" Yelling out his anger which startled Lucy, he yanked his coat from off the shelf and stormed out of his own apartment, leaving Lucy gritting her teeth in anger…and leaving her alone to battle her demons.

"_Taking pity on those pathetic humans, you should be ashamed of yourself!"_

Quietly she rested her head against the wall, just close enough to the radiator to feel its heat, "Shut up shut up shut up shut up…"

"_He wants you dead. They all want you dead. You're a monster to them, a freak. But you know better…"_

Again Lucy gripped at her hat, pulling it down further than before, "I can't…I just can't…Kouta will hate me…Kouta will hate me if I do…" Tears welled at the corner of her eyes as she thought about her beloved far to the North.

"_He already hates you. They all do."_

"No…not Kouta…."

Some time passed before Lucy was able to completely resist her inner demons strangle hold on her, but she could still hear it. Calling to her, beckoning her to tear Noboru's insides out the moment he walked through the door. And when he did, Lucy felt as if she was about to too.

Something soft landed on her head, its fluffy texture tickling her cheek and fluffing the hair underneath her hat. It took her a second to digest what it was, finally realizing that the old man, Noboru, had just thrown a towel over her.

"You don't have any money and I just got paid today…so come on, let's get going."

"Go?" Lucy asked having to restrain herself from bringing up the fight an hour ago, "Go where?"

"To the bathhouse. Kami-sama knows that we both need it," he turned around and set the bag on the kitchen counter, "Never known any child who stank as much as you did…here put this on." He threw another large piece of cloth at her, this one more shapely and designed than the towel. Lucy examined it, not really sure what to make of it. It…looked like a… "It's a coat kid…you put your arms into your sleeves and…"

"I know what to do!" Lucy yelled in frustration. Embarrassed that he actually bought her this, not to mention paying for the first bath in over a month, she forcefully thrust her arms into the sleeves of the coat, "It's too small…"

"I can take it back if you want, I sure wouldn't mind the extra cash."

"It…it's fine…" A flustered Lucy responded, not sure to be humiliated or grateful.

"By the way, food's going to be shorter than usual this month. Let's go."

Reluctantly, Lucy followed him outside and down the cold, metal stairs into the wind-chilled street. Almost immediately Lucy could feel the winter remnants pierce into her bones, but it wasn't nearly as cold as it was at the beginning of the year, and the jacket did help some. Still, the temperature was low enough to cause her to grip her arms around the others.

She did not know where the bathhouse was so she assumed he knew where he was going. Assumed was the word that stuck out in her mind most of all. They would stop every so often for Noboru to look around, and he would take off in a direction that at times seemed random. Lucy figured they must have been walking for thirty minutes, and it seemed that every five minutes he would pull out his money to count it. He wandered towards crowded streets, seeming to be more interested in finding people than the bathhouse, as if they would lead the two of them towards the bath.

"Sorry…" Noboru mumbled after he bumped into a man tall man wearing a trenchcoat.

"Watch where you're going old man," he yelled back as Noboru quickened his pace. Lucy stared up at him.

"Do you know where you're going?" She asked.

"Yes I do!" He snapped, "It's just…" In a moment he looked up and to his left to the large sign that read "Yokohama Bathhouse", and he stopped dead in his tracks, "…right here…"

"And here I thought you were going senile ojii-yarou," Lucy told him, chuckling under her breath.

"Be more respectful in public, I don't want people to think I'm raising a delinquent."

They had been over this before, although never in extensive detail. Neither one of them wanted anyone to see the two of them as something other than family, Noboru because it would be big trouble for him and Lucy because she didn't want to bring attention to herself and be less tempted to rip their heads off.

But it was still funny, they both knew she was a delinquent, but Noboru had yet to realize the extent of Lucy's bad behavior. The thought of her being a good girl was amusing, and it made it easier to smile as they walked into the bathhouse, and the young lady behind the counter greeted them with an even larger smile than Lucy could muster.

"Konichiwa! Will that be two? One adult and one child?"

Lucy looked up at Noboru who was nearly panicking as he searched through his clothes for his money, "Are you sure you have enough money? That thug looking guy stole it didn't-?"

"Here it is!" He exclaimed loudly, actually smiling wide. Was it Lucy's imagination…or was there more money there than there was the last time that he checked it?

Yeah, it must have been. The woman behind the counter bowed immediately after receiving the money for both Lucy and Noboru and waved them on towards the bathhouse.

"Don't take too long, the grocery store opens early and I can't afford to miss any more hours," he told her as they separated into their respective gender baths.

"Whatever," she mumbled back.

The bath was, is so few words, heavenly for Lucy. How long had it been since she has had such a refreshing and relaxing bath? The water, the steam, everything about this bath made her body scream in pleasure. Well…

She looked at the other women in the bath; most of them were older career women with children. Most of the little brats were noisy, but a few kept to themselves or giggled merrily as their mother's gently washed their hair. A few teen to college aged girls took baths as well, but they just soaked and let the hot water touch every inch of their body.

To Lucy, it had been more pleasurable if these eyesores were somewhere else. When she was satisfied that no one was watching her, she quickly tore off the hat and began scrubbing her hair with shampoo.

------------------

"_That sure hit the spot…"_ Lucy thought to herself as she walked out of the bath and into the main lobby, _"I bet ojii-yarou is having a fit taking so long."_ She looked at the clock and its second hand, which was directly opposite of where it had been when she entered the bath. For a moment, Lucy just stared at the clock. Thinking about the Noboru, the fights they had on a regular basis, the way he always complained about how little money he had for food, his constant pestering for her to go outside…

"_Maybe I'll apologize when I see him…maybe…"_ she thought.

"Did you have a good bath?" The lady at the counter asked her with that same large smile she wore when Lucy entered the establishment. Lucy, not in the mood to talk with anyone right now, gave a courteous nod although she never once smiled. "Your grandpa is outside talking with some of his friends right now."

"Grandpa…?" Lucy muttered. Oh yes that's correct, Noboru. Wait a minute. "His friends? What friends?"

"He came out just a few minutes ago, seeming rather impatient, then his friends came in and they stepped outside to discuss some thing. They looked kind of…well, not-good-people, your grandpa isn't a bad person…is he?"

All Lucy could do was look at her with complete and utter disgust. It took a moment for her to ask, "Are you retarded?"

Ignoring the look of shock and dismay on the lady's face, Lucy grabbed her coat and walked outside.

"Ojii-yarou?" She called out. When there was no answer, she called out again louder "Ojii-yarou!?"

Still nothing. The wind had settled down greatly since she first went inside the bathhouse, and even though it was still bitter outside it wasn't near what it had been with the wind chill. And as such, she was able to hear vaguely familiar noises coming from several alleys over. What was that sound?

"_Yes…what is that sound?"_

With no caution or wariness at all she proceeded down to where the noises were coming from, hearing them grow louder with every footstep.

"_Do you hear it? You know what that sound is. It's such a calming…soothing…lovely sound to your ears. It's…"_

"Death…" 

As Lucy rounded the corner, her suspicions were confirmed. There was the ojii-yarou…getting pounded on by three yakuza looking mother-

"Did you really think you could get away with it old man?" One of them said, his hair bleached a sparkling white and slicked back. He didn't even give a chance for Noboru to answer before connecting his fist to his stomach yet again.

The second guy looked more Japanese, if there was such a term. Maintaining the mousy-brown color of his hair and letting it grow into a giant mushroom puff, he stood nearly as tall as the blonde did, "We are reputable businessmen, and we can't afford to have thieves like you ruining our business."

As for the third guy, it was more difficult to tell as he hung back in the shadows of the alley, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, "And now you've made us take time out of our busy day to track you down and return what was ours." In the darkness, Lucy could see the man hold up something small and flat. It was difficult to tell what it was however.

"Now tell me again…WHERE is the money from the wallet?" The bleach-haired guy asked, patting Noboru's shoulder and leaning against him like they were good pals. Noboru coughed and a red viscous substance flew out of his lungs.

"I…I told you," he gasped out, "I needed…money…for a bath…and it's…it's…"

"EH?!" The mousy-hair guy asked, "Speak up, we're having a little trouble hearing you?"

"It's…gone…" No sooner did he say that then a fist connect with his jaw, sending him sprawling against the cold ground.

"Taku…. Most people would at least have the decency to wait until those they stole from would be completely gone before carelessly spending their money like that," the bleach guy said, way-too enthusiastic about it, "Don't you think so aniki?"

The guy in the shadows chuckled, "Yes, you would think so."

There was a slight twinge in the back of Lucy's neck; something that she had to get rid of…had to do. "Oi!" She yelled, "What are you three doing to that ojii-yarou?"

She didn't even have to get past the "Hey" part for her to get their attention. The mousy-haired guy was actually startled and leapt back a few inches, "Wha-? What's that kid doing here?!"

"_What do you think I'm doing here?"_ "Why are you killing him? Did he take your money or something?" She said, knowing full well what happened. It took a couple seconds for her memory to click, but these were the same guys that he bumped into on their way to the bathhouse. Simple really, bump, swipe, then apologize and walk away. They hadn't stopped them immediately so it must have taken them some time to realize what had happened, "You sure are slow if it took you this long to realize what happened."

The guy in the back hissed which ignited the glow on his cigarette more so than what it had been. He flicked the butt away and puffed out a cloud of smoke before he said, "You have some mouth on you kid. Are you with him?"

"No…" Noboru gasped out, "Never seen…the brat before…"

"Ohhhh?" The bleach-haired guy asked inquisitively, "She seems to know your name…'ojii-yarou' is it?" He chuckled, finding his nickname quite amusing.

"She's probably…one of those street kids…" Noboru coughed as he felt his heart murmur, "Mouthy little…bitches who don't respect anyone…."

Although Lucy realized what he was trying to do, she couldn't help but find humor in this situation, "Eh? Mouthy am I? Is that why you wanted me out of your apartment so quickly?"

The jeers and laughs came immediately from the three thugs whom lightly kicked Noboru and taunted him all the more.

"Just leave kid…" Noboru said, "This month's paid, so just go…if I'm not back by then, just take what you want and go…."

"Take what you want?" Lucy asked skeptically, "There's nothing that I want, it's all junk. I got more from a woman's purse than I could ever want from your junk heap." With that she held out a small leather wallet, whose opening screamed of money, "They're mostly one-thousand yen notes, but she's got about fifty-thousand yen altogether."

Finally the moment of opportunity had arrived. The bleach-haired guy whistled, an indication that he was quite impressed, "For real kid? Would you mind if _I_ took a look at that?"

Vindictively, she held out the wallet, "Come and get it."

And he did. Ever so slowly walking towards her, closer and closer he came. Yes…all the anger and rage could be taken out on him and his kind, nobody would miss them, nobody would care. They were bad people anyway, and they needed to be _punished_.

"You know…stealing is a crime kid," he snatched the wallet out of her hand, "Me and my…associates you see, we're kinda like the-wow she's right, there's forty-nine in here-we're kinda like the uh…counselors, at a rehabilitation facility you see. We all are, "he bent down and placed his hand on her shoulder, something she did not like but tolerated anyway for the time being, "can help you with this problem. Oh, we're not like those, hoidy-toidy businesses that use kindness to help you through your problem. Naw you see, we more or less…make you sick of it."

"Yeah, make you sick of it," the mousy guy replied, then bashed Noboru in the side of his face with his foot.

The blonde chuckled, "We just make you steal and steal, and steal some more until you're sick of it. And then, you keep stealing until you can never do it again. And maybe…" he eyed Lucy. Not with a devouring look, but one of morbid curiosity, "Maybe in a few years, there can be another way you can repay your debt to society."

Lucy heard the mousy guy laugh; even the one who skulked in the shadows chuckled. But still she played along; she was quite enjoying this game of cat-and-mouse. Too bad for them, they didn't realize that she was possibly the biggest fucking mouse they'd ever seen, "So if I come with you, you'll let him go?" She pointed at Noboru, who pathetically protested.

"We don't work that way," the guy in the shadow said, "This is his rehabilitation, and he'll continue paying to society until it hurts," he lit another cigarette, "You'll have your own soon enough."

"Not even if I ask you to?" Lucy asked, ever so slightly smirking.

"Not even," the blonde guy smiled and rubbed her head, so hard that he knocked her hat off just enough for something gray to poke its way through, "What the-? Hey aniki! Check this out!" He pulled her hat off completely, and it was at time that Lucy knew they had gone too far, "This little freak's got horns. Fucking horns man, like one of those American moose or something."

"I don't think America has moose dumbass," the mousy guy said as he too lit a cigarette, "Just Alaska or some shit and-what's the matter?" He looked at the guy in the shadow, who's cigarette hung from his mouth only through the saliva on his lips for a moment before falling to the earth. Taking a breath of his own cigarette, he turned around to where he was looking…and so too did his fall to the ground.

"Please…" Lucy asked, smiling viciously, "Let. Him. Go." To her immediate right was the blonde, still alive, but not for long. His face was pressed against the side of the building like a pancake; the bricks had muffled his scream and body. The man's eyes bulged from its sockets as Lucy pushed him harder and harder into the building with her vectors. Blood dripped from his ears and nose, even from his eye sockets a small stream of red flowed. In a quiet and faint voice, he reached out to his two partners and squeaked out…

"A…ni…ki…"

His head exploded as it was smashed into the side of the building, spraying blood and gray matter across a multitude of bricks. The 'pop' of his skull caused the other two to jump in fright as his headless body slid down the wall into a huddled slump. Did Lucy do that? Did that tiny girl do that? To one, it didn't really mattered.

"You little BITCH!" He yelled, picking up a lead pipe and charging at Lucy. Ignoring the pleas of protest from his partner, he raised the pipe high and swung it at Lucy the moment he was in reach.

Only to find it had been ripped from his hands.

The swing missed completely, his hand never even touched her. Instead, he felt his feet fall from under him as he was thrown onto his back. The clinking of the pipe landing several feet away was the last thing on his mind as he stumbled onto all fours, facing away from Lucy.

With amazing force he felt the hands grab at the back of his head and neck like some obsessed fans, yanking him onto his knees nearly bent backwards. More hands grabbed at his arms and pulled backwards until they too popped. His scream of pain was muffled by his own whimpering as they were torn completely away from his shoulders.

The last man alive watched with horror as his own arms began to punch him in the head, before that too was taken off with a clean swipe, his eyes fixated on a look of anguish and pain never before felt in this world. There was no time to mourn for his kin; he had to leave now.

The first thing that flew at him was his partner's arm. That hit him directly in the abdomen, causing him to double over in pain. But no, he was still able to move, he could move a lot faster hurt than that little girl could well. Trembling, he stumbled backwards and raised his head, and the garbage can lid connected directly with his forehead.

The man flew backwards several feet, and from his position, Noboru, who had been watching with fear this entire time, noticed that the lid had not moved from his head. No blood pooled, nothing to indicate any skin had been broken, it was just embedded several inches into his cranium. He continued to watch with terror as the man's body began to twitch, a sign of muscle cells releasing their inhibitors causing them to spasm wildly until, nothing. It wasn't until he heard the soft stepping of feet that he realized his immediate company.

What could describe the thoughts that ran through his head at that moment? Was this her game? Was she waiting for this exact moment? If she had these…powers all the time she could have killed him without warning a long time ago. So why didn't she? With a mix of fear and curiosity, he raised his weary eyes to meet hers.

"Are you scared of me?" She asked in a melancholy tone, "I wouldn't be surprised if you are, I don't blame you. I've always considered myself a frightening person when I want to be." Her eyes flickered a hint of bloodlust, enough to make him shiver. But nothing came of it, instead, she reached down and gently grabbed his hand, then opening it slowly, placed the wallet of the woman she stole into it. "Here, I don't need it. I can just take whatever these guys have. And hey…"

Noboru looked at her tiny face, all of which was drained of that frightening thirst for death. What was in its place was what it should have been, a little girl. Slightly embarrassed and sad, not regretting what she had done but still feeling bad for her actions.

"Sorry I caused you so much trouble," she mumbled, her tiny face scowling at the thought of apologizing to this human. In a way she felt good by protecting him, but in a way she felt bad for sympathizing and growing fond of him as well. She had too much dignity to bow to him, and about-faced and began to storm off. Until that is, a large hand grabbed a hold of her arm.

"Wait kid," Noboru said softly. Lucy turned to face him, shocked that he even managed the courage to come this close to her again. She expected a scolding or worse, something that would drive her over the edge and do to him what she had imagined many times. "So tell me…did you take that woman's wallet using your powers?"

What an odd question. She didn't feel obliged to answer, but wanted to know what his angle was, "Yeah. It's a lot easier and quicker than using my real hands. Why?"

For a moment, Noboru just looked at the ground, lost in thought. Was it bad to do such a thing? Not that it mattered to her, a little thievery was nothing compared to what she had done and believed fully that Kouta would not reprimand her for it. Beside, what did _he_ have to scold her about, he was the one who stole from those men.

Noboru raised his head, a devious smile spread across his lips, "You and me are going to get along fine after all kid."

**END CHAPTER**

Note: (bows deeply)

So sorry about the long time it took to write this! So many things happening at once, mainly getting a 6-4 job that is draining me of sleep and mental capacity, not to mention I've started playing WoW again. Anyway, as another reminder I am NOT dropping this story. I plan to update this, _Shuffle! Hope_ and _A Piglet's Island Adventure_ periodically, although I can't guarantee they'll always be on schedule. I will inform all my readers of any halts in my progress with any stories for the following months to come. Please be patient with me, and I eagerly await your responses. I will start work with _Shuffle! Hope_, Chapter 15 in the following days. I hope to see you there.

Preview for Chapter 4: Noboru takes Lucy under his wing and teaches her the tricks of the trade. But how will her new "friend" like her one and only love?


	4. Experiment Lucy: Age 12 Part 2

Disclaimer: _Elfen Lied_ is a property of outside companies, I in no way claim ownership over it or its characters.

Note: In the course of writing **Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade**, I am bound to make mistakes in spelling in grammar. Therefore, I ask you the readers to write to me any changes that need to take place and any errors I have made in the process of writing this story, thank you.

**Elfen Lied: Neue Pfade**

**July XXX2 – Experiment Lucy Age 12**

Remain small, inconspicuous, and above all else act invisible. It had taken Lucy some time for her to fully grasp the meaning of these guidelines that Noboru had told her. Although people were going to see her, the way was to act so that they would forget you the moment they took their eyes off you.

Still, Lucy did not think these were as important to her as they were to Noboru. He had to get close to his target, and his old and feeble hands were making it difficult for him to invisible. Lucy was young, steady, and calm, not to mention she had over a meter arm span.

The thrill of stealing from humans blessed with a better life than her felt almost as good as it did to kill them. But by doing so she managed to keep the beast within her muffled and in effect keep her promise to Kouta.

The name brought a smile to her face.

But no! That was no time to think about him now. She looked up from her seat on the train to the crowd that huddled around her. In the past months she had learned this was the best place for someone like her. Her arms could pass right through anyone in her way to her target, stealthily reach into their pocket, then zigzag through the narrow openings that the humans left her.

_How disgraceful…_

"_These are not what these are for, yeah I know…"_ The beast inside her was muffled, but not silenced. And each day that passed became more and more stressful for her. Old urges resurfaced from time to time, and only the thought of Kouta was able to keep her steady. Today had been easy so far, she looked forward to getting back to that tiny apartment, Noboru said he had a surprise for her.

"_Tch…more credit cards…"_ The plastic pieces of money were tricky to use. She couldn't use them, and Noboru said it was difficult for him to use them nowadays. They were practically worthless aside from the short, immediate use for them. To her it seemed a lot of people had started carrying less cash, and more plastic ever since she became a thief as well.

As the train slowed to a stop, she reached down and grabbed her leather satchel that she placed on the ground next to her foot. This wallet didn't matter, as she ever so slightly peeked into the satchel. Today had been a good day even before she got on the train.

----------------

"Tadaima…" Lucy's melancholy voice called out as she closed the door behind her. The tiny apartment that she had come to call home the last couple months had changed slowly with her help. The musty smell had become a memory to even Noboru. Everything was clean, in order, but more than that, there were actual items in the room. Brand new plates on the kotatsu, a second futon rolled into a corner, bags of junk food on the shelves of the kitchen, which up until this point had been a commodity. And over in the other corner on a tiny wooden stand…

"Wah! You got a tele!" she said aloud as she rushed over to it. An eleven, maybe thirteen inch screen, it was the one thing that for some reason, Lucy had missed from her days of squatting. She ran her fingers around the screen and box, smiling from ear to ear with joy.

"You like?" Noboru asked, whom Lucy had just noticed was in the room. Probably the one thing that didn't change very much was Noboru. He still looked old and thin, much like he did when she first met him. But he was livelier now and healthier too.

"You did all right ojii-yarou," Lucy said, her gaze never leaving the television. There was a sigh of annoyance behind her, something she knew meant he wasn't quite used to that name yet. But eventually he would have to, because Lucy liked calling him that. While on her knees, she spun around to him, smiling the largest he had ever seen her, "Hey hey! What can we watch on here?"

Another sigh, that wasn't good news, "Nothing much unfortunately. We can't afford cable yet, and the only stations the antenna can receive are a local station and a news station. But…" he smiled and held up a plastic bag, "it does have a VCR. So at the least we can watch some movies."

"Mmm…that's okay, I like the news." Lucy responded. The look on his face was that of surprise, not expecting her to be satisfied with the news. But truth be told, it was the one last thing that kept her evil desires at bay. Movies always had a happy ending, even the horror and slash films always ended with the hero or heroine escaping or killing the bad guys themselves. Comedies were mediocre to her, no matter what the box they came in said, she just could not find humans very funny. And no matter how hard she tried to view herself and Kouta in romantic situations like romance flicks portrayed, she was more aggravated by the fact that two other people were falling in love and being together, while SHE remained far away from him.

To her, the news was plenty. Very rarely did a tale of death end happily on the news. Scandals, betrayals, humans hurting other humans for no reasons whatsoever…just the thought of that satisfied her strong desires to kill all the humans she saw.

After all, what could she do that humans themselves could not do?

But Noboru was being bothersome. He really wanted to watch a movie, and for some reason, even though most of her money paid for it, she did not feel like arguing with him. With silent resolve she stood up and walked past him to the bathroom as he cockily strutted by her to the television.

Lucy wondered if he could feel her glare piercing the back of his head, obviously he was too excited to test out his new television that for his own personal safety. It was obvious that he needed a little reminder.

"You're awfully brazen to act like that around me, ojii-yarou…" and with that she closed the door.

The tape in his hand dropped to the floor, his old hands trembling feverishly. Was it senility that made him forget those thugs several months ago?

"Wh-What am I doing?" he whispered to himself, calming his hands. "No…no…she wouldn't hurt me, she's too dependant on me."

It was probably a good thing for the both of them that she did not hear him.

"So what's the haul today?" Minutes later, after Lucy had emerged from the bathroom, the two of them sat around the kotatsu, which had just been emptied for the nightly ritual. In a flash it was covered with paper, leather, metal, and a couple pieces of plastic.

"Tch…" Noboru scoffed, "It's getting difficult that a man can earn a living with so much convenience for other people." Card after card was thrown above Lucy's head, who caught each one with her vectors and snapped it two. As she had thought, they were too troublesome for either one to use and it was for the best to just dispose of them. "Ah, finally someone with a bit of sense. Lucky!" Noboru laid down several pieces of paper cash on the table, next to the coins.

When all was said and done, the only things left were a large stack of coins, and a slightly smaller one of paper cash.

"All in all…about thirty thousand yen, more than that actually. Not a bad haul today, eh?" He smiled at her, who smiled back. To him he loved the smell and feel of money; to her she loved the feeling of screwing all those humans over. "Annndd…here's your cut." He slid several bills towards her and she took him.

There was a moment of silence as she looked over the money, counting exactly five thousand yen out. A cough broke the silence, and she glanced up at him, extending his hand to her.

"Eh-hem!" He coughed again, a little louder this time. Her eyes fixated on him for a moment, then returned to the money.

"Not today ojii-yarou, I'm saving this."

"Eh?" Again Noboru looked surprised. Usually, after a day when the two of them take to the streets to "gather" money, Lucy just hands it back to him with a snide "What would I need it for". It was understandable that he was taken aback by this sudden change of attitude, "What's with you today? I thought you had no need for it."

But she did. She remembered on the train that Kouta would be here soon, and she would love to see him again with a present. It had been an entire year since she saw him, and still his face shone clearly in her mind. An entire year, and soon…soon…

Her head eerily creaked towards the calendar hanging on the wall behind her. It was not possible…how could she…

"Wh-Wh…" her voice trembled so much that it even scared Noboru, who had never seen such horror in her face, "Wh…What day is it…?"

"Ano…the twenty-fifth…why?"

Again, her face did something he had never seen it do it the last six months. Never mind how enormous her eyes had gotten, but how small droplets of water had swelled in the corners of them. Biting her lip so hard it drew blood, Noboru scooted away from her, fearing for his life.

He considered himself lucky when she dashed out the door, using her vectors to slam it open, something she rarely did and she disappeared around the corner.

"What was that all about?" he muttered as the door slowly creaked on its hinges. Pinching himself to make sure he was not dreaming, he looked at the wad of cash that Lucy had left on the table.

He wasted no time to snatch it up and slide it into his cut.

--------------------

"_Damn damn damn damn damn damn!"_ Lucy screamed in her mind. She flew over a low brick wall and continued to sprint towards the grave.

_"How could I forget about it? I've been looking to this all year! Why?! Damn damn damn damn…"_

The months of studying the ins and outs of the city unknowingly paid off as she used every shortcut to her advantage. She hoped he had only been here a couple days. She hoped that he had just come to Kamakura this very day. She hoped with all her might that he wasn't he even here yet.

The streets emptied out into woods and from there she knew she was close. Her heart pounded in her throat, her stomach screamed at her and threatened to empty itself into her mouth, and none of it was from the amount of running she did. Up ahead in the distance she saw a tree that had become very familiar to her, and in an odd way, comforting. There could only be one thing more comforting and joyous to see underneath its beautiful branches…

"KOUTA!" She screamed at the surprised young boy and launched herself at him.

"Where have you-?" Wham! Lucy's shoulder slammed into his chest and the two of them fell to the ground in a mess of dirt and clothes.

Quietly, Kaede sobbed onto Kouta's chest while he regained the wind that was knocked out of him. The moment he was able to move again under his own power, Kaede quickly raised herself off of him and desperately held back the tears.

He had grown since she last saw him. His face was narrowing out and he was slightly growing taller, even from their angle on the ground. But he still wore that same, sweet smile from when they first met, and to Kaede, no one was more handsome or beautiful than he was.

She quietly gazed at his dust-covered face, a smile pursing her lips just below the deepening red of her cheeks. There were no worries now, nothing in the world that could ruin her happiness now.

"Is cough something wrong, Ka-chan?" He asked in a deep, heaving breath. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"No…nothing's wrong…not anymore…" she said with a smile.

-----------------------------------

"A whole week huh?" Kaede asked as her feet dangled off the bridge wall. This news came as a shock to her earlier, so much that she almost lost control of herself. But she restrained, she held back her sadness and despair and tried desperately to see the glass as half-full.

"Gomen nasai Ka-chan," the young Kouta said with a deep reflection of his mood, "I waited here every day for you, but you never came…I was worried that something might have happen to you."

How could she tell him that she had forgot? How could she tell him that she was so worked up in a new, decent life that she nearly forgot that out of the excruciatingly long year, the relative timeframe that she could see his beautiful face again? She could not, so she lied.

"It's my fault Kouta…I…moved in with my grandpa and he didn't want me coming outside to meet with some boy he had never met before…" a plausible reason, Kaede thought as the words came out of her mouth. Kouta nodded and smiled, and Kaede's heart melted.

For a moment, Kaede was lost in his face, the burning memory of their last departure still fresh on her mind. Nothing else in the world had felt so good as to kiss him like she did.

"So what made him change his mind? About letting you see me that is?"

"Eek!" A startled Kaede replied, having let her mind wander too far from the situation at hand, "Eh, well, um, ano, that is um…" she had not prepared herself this far ahead, indeed, everything she had said up until this point had been on a whimsy, "I snuck out! Yeah that's it, I snuck out!"

At once, Kouta's face turned from gleeful child to a stern adult, "You shouldn't do that! What if your grandpa finds you missing and worries about you?"

"_What? Why you-I came all this way to see you and-"_ Kaede thought, taken aback by the sudden change of attitude. Apparently her face did not hide her displeasure at the scolding and Kouta caught right on that.

"What if he's out there looking for you now? He's probably worried sick about you right now!"

Kaede puffed out her cheeks in anger and furrowed her eyebrows, "Don't get all high and mighty on me! You snuck out too the first time we met, remember?!"

Bullseye. "Th-Th-That was different! I was younger and didn't know any better!"

But Kaede did not want any of it. She scoffed and turned her head away from him, who in turn repeated her actions. While the noises of the forest overcame their hushed breathing, Kaede had a moment to relax and collect her thoughts.

"_Stupid Kouta! Doesn't he realize what I've been through the last year?! Almost dying, barely living off a meager income…missing him…missing him so much…"_ her eyes gazed over to him, and for a second she thought she saw his face turn away, _"M…Maybe I shouldn't have gotten upset…. After all…he's been worrying about me the last week…"_

Her fists clenched at her soiled pants and she bit her lip. She couldn't believe she was going to say this, but Kouta…Kouta was different from all the other humans. Kouta was…

Special.

"Gomen nasai!" Their voices echoed off each other, nearly sending them flying backwards.

Through tear-moistened eyes, Kaede looked at him with a sense of humility and relief, "N-Nani?"

And Kouta, with tears less visible that Kaede's but still there, turned his head away as he spoke, "I-I shouldn't have lectured you like that. Being locked up all week…I-I'm sure it must have been hard. I…just know…how it is…"

"How…?" Kaede wiped a lone tear that had escaped her eye, "How what is?"

Kouta did not want to answer, he did not want to answer under any circumstance. But whatever manly urges told Kouta not to, he knew that between the two of them, it was all right to say it.

"Be-Because…because I was worried about you too…when you didn't show up I mean…"

Kaede…hated this. She hated how he was the only person who could make her feel the way she did, how she could feel weak and defenseless around him, how she could let loose her deepest sadness and do nothing but be cradled in his arms.

She hated it…and for that reason alone, made her realize why she loved Kouta so much…

He made her feel human again.

Screaming apologies at the top of her voice, which was muffled by his shirt in her mouth, she cried tears that she had held back for a long, long time. Even if Kouta hated crybabies, she was glad she could be a crybaby in front of him.

----------------

"Are you done now?" A sympathetic Kouta asked the sniffling young Kaede, who rubbed her eyes intensely.

"Uh-huh…" she sniffled again, except this time peeked an eye open to see his smug face smiling down at her. Naturally, this infuriated Kaede, "D-Don't you dare laugh at me!"

He did, of course. Mildly chuckling, he waved his arms in front of him and backed away, "I won't I won't! I promise!"

Tears of anger welled in Kaede's eyes, "Liar! I just heard you 'heheh'!"

Now Kouta was having periodic giggling fits, all of which made Kaede even angrier. The shouting and laughing continued for a while, finally ending with Kaede pulling a very similar turn-about as not to let Kouta win this argument about nothing. When his soft hand wrapped around hers though, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had lost.

"Come on…I bet your grandpa is waiting for you…"

Like a bashful, obedient little puppy, she nodded and walked right behind him, gripping onto his hand tightly so neither of them would let go.

It was, at most, a good twenty-minute walk to the old man's apartment, but at least a good hour and a half before the sun would set. And since Kaede had spent the last year studying the city, she made damn sure to use all ninety-plus minutes of Kouta's time.

They stopped periodically, mostly on Kouta's request, to gain a bearing on their position whenever Kaede purposefully led them astray or in an opposite direction of the apartment. He did not know where it was, how could she not hog his presence until sunset?

From the look on his face whenever they stopped, she knew he had an inkling that she was giving him wrong directions on purpose, and expressed it in his tones as soon as they would pick up their last conversation while they continued to walk. But as quickly as his irritation rose, it also fell and he enjoyed her company as much as she did his. It was a momentary heaven for the, only during brief pauses in conversation did Kaede begin to worry about their halved-time together. One week…it was still five days more than what she was given when they first met, but not nearly enough to indulge her selfish desire. But every time she shook it off furiously, drawing herself closer to Kouta and asking the first thing that came to her mind.

"It's starting to get dark…maybe we should find a police officer…" a worried Kouta mentioned during one of their brief stops to rest. This was the sign that Kaede should REALLY go home.

Making sure to avoid dark alleyways and places she knew some of the more shady characters that she had seen Noboru with, Kaede reluctantly led Kouta to her home. Sure, she took her time going home, but she went home nonetheless.

"He…Here it is…" she squeaked out as she ran her fingertips into the palm of his hand. Her little finger-play seemed to embarrass Kouta, who blushed while he looked at her.

"It…It looks pretty small…" he mentioned as he looked away from her, "Is it okay? I mean, to live in…"

Nodding, she looked up to her floor and reminisced about the last six months, "I like it. It's not the home I've always dreamt about, but…"

"_Don't say anything more…"_ her eyes shot open in shock as her consciousness screamed from inside her mind. For all Kouta knew, she had lived a fairly happy life with two parents somewhere in the city.

And that's _ALL _he needed to know.

Recognizing the agonizing look on his face, Kaede quickly waved him off, "Ano, what I mean is, it's not like my parents place I mean…they're on a trip right now, and my grandpa said it was alright for me to live with him."

Unfortunately for Lucy, this answer, unlike all the others, didn't seem to satisfy Kouta whom looked at her almost pityingly. So much so, that Kaede had trouble staring him in the face, almost as if he could read her mind.

"_Please don't look at me like that…"_ Kaede thought as she grasped her right arm and stared down into the ground, unable to look him in the eyes. When Kouta grabbed her hand again, she felt like her heart would break from the sheer amount of pain she had been through.

"Kaede-chan…what's wrong?" He asked very passively. His hand felt so warm and soft, if it only meant a few more moments of forbidden bliss for the young dicloni…it would be all right to tell him her dark secrets.

With her head lowered deeply, her hair covering any part of her eyes, she mumbled, "Well…you see…the truth is…"

"Oi!" A burly voice called out from one of the upper floors. Kaede recognized it immediately and looked skywards, towards the surly face of her 'grandpa', "You coming inside or not?"

Needless to say, she was a little irritated at the old man for ruining her moment, but on the same note probably spared her some heartbreaking moments with Kouta. Easily faking a smile that she had done so many times before, she reluctantly let her hand slide from Kouta's grasp as she backed towards the stairs.

"Bezuni," she said, "I'll meet you tomorrow, kay?!"

Although he wasn't entirely satisfied with that, the prospect of seeing her again lifted his spirits as he waved to her, "I'll be there! Promise!"

"Me too!"

From his story's balcony, Noboru watched the two curiously. Indeed, this was the first time he had ever seen Lucy look so…happy. The television this morning did not nearly amount to the look he saw on her face as they walked down the road to his apartment.

Noboru continued to watch, unashamed, as Lucy and the boy broke apart from each other and they went their separate paths. The boy was out of his sight long before Lucy had reached the floor of their building complex, which struck Noboru as kind of odd. His eyes gazed upon her apathetically as she walked towards him, head dropped so low that her hair hid her face.

"So who was that kid?" He asked with no regret, "Never seen him around before." Lucy did not say a word as she solemnly walked towards the door and placed one hand on the knob, "You'd better watch yourself kid, boys like that are-"

Her piercing, evil glance nearly sent Noboru over the railing. There had been only one time that he had seen a similar look from her, and it led to a still-in-progress hunt for a serial killer. A serial killer that he was standing in front of.

There was no wavering in her glare, no amount of resentment or doubt. She did NOT want him to talk bad about that boy in any way, shape, or form. With her real hand, she slowly opened the door and walked on inside, leaving the door swaying in the light summer breeze.

Noboru waited for a second, making sure that she was not tearing up the apartment in her apparent anger. Satisfied that she had quietly turned on the television, he too walked into his apartment, closing the door behind him. The last thought on his mind before he entered was,_ "I think I'll let her have the TV just for tonight…"_

------------------------

With a ferocious pull, Noboru boldly dragged the protesting Lucy by her arm away from their apartment.

"I said!" Lucy hissed, "Let! Go!"

Her sugar-coated wards of imminent danged never did not seem to reach his ears, as he continued to overpower her tiny frame, "You've been gone for several days all day to see that young punk-"

"Watch yourself ojii-yarou! I can do whatever the hell I want to!"

"That's what you think but you're wrong! With you gone there hasn't been a steady source of income for us and-" Again, Lucy cut him off.

"We have plenty of money!" Her teeth grated against each other so hard that her jaw ached in pain. It took all of strength not to scream at him in the middle of the crowded street, much less rip him apart by the seams.

"It figures that you would go so ungrateful, after I saved your pathetic little body from freezing in the snow!" This struck a chord with Lucy, who jolted back with shock, "And don't forget, you said that…**boy** was going to be busy until later today, right?"

Lucy did not speak a word. It was true, yesterday after spending all day together, Kouta had said that his family was doing some kind of lunch gathering, from what the two of them could gather. That did not mean she wanted to acknowledge it to **him.**

"We'll only be in here for a little while, and then afterwards, you can do whatever you like the rest of the day. Go get killed for all I care."

In the back of her mind, she felt her inner demon rage at her for not obliterating him on the spot. But no, there were too many factors working against her right now, one of the main ones was the endless amounts of humans that wandered past them.

They stopped abruptly, to Lucy's surprise, as she looked up to see the building that Noboru supposedly wanted to go to.

"Now wait here, I had to spend a long time to let the manager of this place to allow you in here, but I need to tell him you're here before you're allowed in." With that, he let go of her arm and stormed into the building, still angry over their argument.

Lucy wanted to run away, she wanted to do nothing until wait for Kouta by the grave and then spend the rest of the day with him. This man had no right to tell her what to do, someone who had helped finance all the current luxuries in his apartment.

Silently, she sat down on the warm concrete sidewalk. As much as she wanted to leave, she knew that if she waited for Kouta, nothing but bad and unpleasant thoughts would come into her mind, much like they did last year. Doing this little chore for the old man would take her mind off of things for a little while anyway and then she could spend the rest of the day with Kouta.

Again, she looked up at the building, with it's flashing lights and large, glass paneling. Lucy has seen places like this before, but never really knew how to use the machines inside.

"Pachinko…" she muttered, watching the customers inside curiously as they pressed their faces up against some kind of machine as their hands fiddled with some knobs. Apparently, Noboru figured this to be an excellent way to make money through the use of Lucy's vectors. They had tried other things, from robbing ATM machines to distracting people by throwing or breaking an object. All of which failed, some more miserably than others, but this was a more-sure fire way to earn money, at least that is what Noboru had told her.

Several minutes went by before Noboru came out of the building, more calm now than when he entered, and led Lucy to the machine where he would be playing at.

The plan was simple enough, Noboru would "explain" to Lucy how to play the game, and as she caught on she could direct the pachinko balls accordingly to what would be the most rewarding design. And strangely enough, Lucy found it quite entertaining to watch the flashing lights and electronic sounds as she directed the balls to specific holes and gates. But always she had her eye on the clock on the far wall, and within little time at all, it was nearly one o'clock.

"Oi, ojii-yarou," she muttered, "I'm getting out of here, it's almost one." Flexing her arms against the stool, she barely lifted herself upwards when a large hand came down upon her shoulder.

"It's not time to go yet, just a little more."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at the clock again. Maybe she was becoming a little too impatient, as there were still twenty minutes left until one o'clock and it was a ten minute walk at the most to her dog's grave.

Ten minutes passed, more slowly than it had before. Nonetheless, this was a time that Lucy felt she could not wait any longer and this time, without telling him, leaped off her chair and took one step towards the door.

"Hold it," Noboru said, placing a hand yet again on her shoulder. This time, Lucy cocked her head and stared at him with disbelief, not quite sure what to make of it. "I'm not done yet," he grumbled, "Sit back down and behave!"

Mouth agape, Lucy continued to stare at him with an unwavering amount of shock and surprise, "Excuse m-"

"I said sit down!" He hissed at her again, taking his gaze off the machine for the first time. Not quite sure how to make of it, there was something inside Lucy that…made her want to stay there for a little while longer, just to see what he would do. She did not like it one bit, but she figured five more minutes and she could run to the grave in that amount of time.

Five minutes passed, and she said aloud, "I'm going." No question, no indication that she wanted a response, just "I'm going."

Noboru persisted, however. "You will leave when I tell you to."

Curiosity was replaced by fury, as she watched the minute hand of the clock tick slowly to, and past one. Every other minute she would tell him she was going, and every time he would snap back with a denial that was not requested. Alongside that, if she would lose consciousness of the game in front of him, he would be sure to "remind" her how to play the game.

Now it was five past one. Continuously she asked herself why she obeyed him. Was it because he had domesticated her? Was it because she felt sorry for him? No…no it could not have been any of those reasons. The truth was, Lucy was curious to see a side of this man that she had never seen before.

And for some reason, her inner demon did not say a word to her at all.

Ten past one now. The last lingering bits of curiosity still bound her to this hard, metal stool. Something that was…important for her to do.

Her moves inside the machine became jagged and unrewarding. All of it my accident too, she was too infuriated to purposely mess with his game.

Now the clock neared one twenty five, and Lucy felt the insides of her mind snap. After thirty-five minutes of quieted arguing with this man, there was nothing he could do now that would stop her from leaving.

One final time, she muttered, "I'm…leaving…now…!"

And Noboru, lost in a maelstrom of greed, spun around to stare her in the face, "Listen you little shit, _I_ am the adult, and _I_ will tell you when it is alright for you to leave, do you hear me?!" The tone of his voice raised, just enough to get the attention from nearby players, "And as far as I'm concerned, that other shit of a boyfriend of yours can just-"

It was so instant not even Lucy saw it coming. All of her blind rage became directed at Noboru, and she launched her vectors towards him. She wanted to kill him, she wanted to strangle the life out of him and she did not care who was watching her! It was only through sheer force of will that she forced Kouta's face into her mind, and sent her vectors screaming past his face and into the machine that he was sitting at.

Glass, metal, and plastic exploded everywhere, sending all the patrons off their seats and spilling every single Pachinko ball. Noboru himself slammed his back against the opposite row of machines, as he finally caught a glimpse of what he had missed. Lucy's eyes stared angrily at the floor in front of the demolished machine, swelling with tears. Her face became red from forcing all the blood into her head to stop herself from unleashing Hell upon this tiny store. Even her entire frame trembled violently at the emanating waves of hatred she poured from her very soul, all directed at **him**.

The other patrons, those who had not ran out of the store, scrambled feverishly to grab as many Pachinko balls as they could, the only ones not making a sound being Noboru and Lucy. Finally, with her feet gingerly tapping the floor, her fists clenched tightly, she stormed out of the store, turned right down the street, and sprinted away from that place.

Running as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, only one thing stood out in her mind. Kouta. Kouta was the only one who could contain this raging beast inside of her, that until recently had been kept contained. Now, from the actions of one stupid old man, she felt her grip on her sanity loosening.

No words entered her head, no voice telling her to kill, to slaughter and to destroy. Just her entire body resonating with hopelessness and despair, with anger and hatred. She needed a medium, something to calm her down before she did something she would really regret. She needed Kouta, and she needed him now.

And as fate would have it, that was the first thing her face ran into.

"Ita-ta-ta-ta…" Kouta mumbled. He had seen Lucy running towards him but before he could move her face slammed into his chest, sending the both of them to the ground. "K-Kaede-chan…daijobu…?" He wheezed out.

The heavy burden surrounding her heart began to lift, the animalistic instinct in her was fading and in the nick of time too. She was far beyond okay however, but well enough to force a smile and say, "Hai…I'm fine Kouta…"

-------------------

"Stupid ojii-yarou!" Kaede huffed, slurping her juice box forcefully. Both Kaede and Kouta had retreated to her dog's graveyard immediately after they ran into each other, which to Kaede's surprise and delight contained several juice boxes and two bento-lunches.

Kouta, who was sitting perpendicular to Kaede on the tree, looked back at her nervously, "Maybe if you'd stop calling him that…"

She cut him off, "Ojii-yarou is ojii-yarou! He hasn't had a problem with it so far!" Another loud slurp from the juice box, causing the box to implode.

Kouta could not help but chuckle as Kaede tried to squeeze every last bit of juice from her box, "Maybe he was lonely and wanted to spend more time with you."

"We've spent every day together for the past…" she stopped, thinking of a good date to tell him, "Four months!" Satisfied that her juice box was completely empty, she tossed it casually to the side.

"Oi!" Kouta yelled, "Don't litter! It's not nice!"

Although startled, she did feel embarrassed, letting her emotions get the better of her around Kouta. "G-Gomen…" she muttered while her vectors grabbed the box and brought it near her, unseen to Kouta.

A small finger sandwich was the first item she grabbed out of the bento box, gingerly holding it with both hands as she nibbled on the outer layer.

"Oishi…"

"You like?" Kouta asked. With a grunt, she responded to him, "It's kind of surprising though, oba-san has really been teaching Yuka to cook really well!" Instinctively, her eyes glared forward as her mouth stopped in mid-chew, a vein swelling in her forehead. "I hope you don't mind, she really insisted on making a lunch today. I don't know why." Unbeknownst to Kouta, Kaede had quietly rolled the half-chewed food onto her hand and threw that along with the rest of the sandwich, far into the woods.

"What was that?" Kouta asked upon hearing the sound of leaves rattle to the discarded food.

"I didn't hear anything," Kaede muttered, grabbing another juice box and, much more quietly this time, drinking from it.

Silence befell the two soon after, the only sound was Kaede's gentle slurping and Kouta's quiet chewing. To Kouta, this was nothing more than a relaxing visit for him, while to Kaede she could not help but let her mind wander to earlier today.

"Kouta…" she whispered softly, embarrassed to ask this, "Do…Do you think I should apologize to ojii…san?"

"Mmm…" He muttered as he thought about it, "You should probably apologize for running away from him, even though he did upset you pretty badly. Maybe if you try to explain to him he'll understand." He looked up in the sky, lost in thought, "And while you're at, maybe you should stop calling him…"

"Ojii-yarou!"

"Yeah that." It took Kouta a moment to realize that a third presence had made himself known to them. Peeking over Kaede's shoulder, he saw her "grandfather" towering over them, his face radiating of anger. Lucy, of course, was quite shocked.

"W-What are you doing here ojii-yarou?! How did you find us?!"

With a tone that implied he did not need to answer that, he said, "It just so happens that I saw you two running into these woods. It took me a while but I finally caught up with you."

_Kill him._

"Ano…" Kouta muttered. He felt it was his job to melt the ice between them, not realizing it had transformed into a glacier at this point, "K-Konichiwa, a-ano…ojii-san. I'm Kouta, a friend of your…"

Noboru never gave time for Kouta to finish. Whether out of jealousy or greed, Lucy never did find out why he kicked Kouta in the stomach.

_Kill him._

Now the voice was screaming in her head, louder than ever. She saw Kouta's trembling frame on the ground, unable to move the slightest as he peeked at Lucy with fear in his eyes.

"K-K-K…" he gasped out, before he rolled onto his side and passed out.

_Kill him._

"Kouta…?"

Noboru's hand snatched her arm and forcefully lifted her to her feet, practically dragging her away from Kouta's body.

"It seems you don't understand the hierarchical system here…" he hissed at her. "I'M the adult, therefore, YOU obey ME!"

"Kouta…" her body swayed ferociously from side to side as his tiny frame disappeared among the foliage.

"I will not have you go running off like some whore the first sign of some guy shows the slightest interest in a horned freak like yourself!"

"Kouta…" his body was completely out of sight to Lucy now, and more than ever, her voice whispered in her ear.

_Kill. Him._

She wanted him to die; she wanted to kill him. But she could not. She would hurt Kouta if she did so; she would betray her promise to him. But she had to do something.

"W-Why are you doing this?" she asked, probably the first time in her life she had asked so shyly to anyone, "I don't want to go back, I want to be with…"

"SHUT! UP!" He screamed at her, letting go of her arm. This was the first time in Lucy's life anyone had startled her so much, had frightened her so much. Because at no other time could she not kill them.

"This isn't about what you want! You can't always have what you want! **You** will be working for **me** until I am dead and buried!"

_Oblige him of that request._

"Then…this is about…what you want?"

"YES! You piece of shit, it's always been about what I want! The strong control the weak in this world and they benefit from the weak's work! While **WE**, the strong, provide **YOU, **the weak, with the necessities you need to survive! Nothing more! Nothing less!"

What kind of deranged, egotistical point of view was this? Lucy pondered this as the old man, Noboru, acted like he never had before. What could have happened to him to have-?

No…No he was exactly right. Everything he said. It was all right. The strong DO control the weak, why had Lucy not thought of this earlier? But he was wrong on one thing; HE was not controlling her. It was the other way around. He would do anything that he asked of her, as long as she provided him with his precious money. But he had gotten too greedy, or perhaps he had been too greedy from the start. Either way, he had to be punished. He had to be taught a lesson…

For just looking at Kouta.

"Now let's go! The owner of the store is willing to accept the machine malfunctioned so we can still-"

The tree's behind him screeched loudly and cracked like bones against an invisible force, piercing his ears. He immediately stumbled around and fell to the ground, looking frightfully at Lucy, who glared at his feet.

"Ojii-yarou…" she whispered as she let her vectors run rampant on the trees behind her, "You…don't ever…touch…Kouta…again…"

Rage, hatred, anger. This was all fine now. She understood now. In this world, the strong survive, and she would survive together with Kouta. No matter what.

"Ch-Ch-Choto matte!" Noboru yelled, finally realizing the seriousness of the situation. Whether it was his senility or greed had gotten the better of him, he had made a grave mistake in touching this girl's beloved.

"Anata…ANATA…" Lucy's shoulders exaggerated her forced breathing, making her small body become even larger to Noboru. Finally, in a burst of rage, she raised her head up, tears streaming down her hatred filled eyes as her teeth ground together in blind fury, she yelled at him, "YOU, WILL NEVER TOUCH KOUTA, AGAIN!"

The last thing Noboru felt before everything went blank was a large, strong hand gripping itself tightly around his mouth, cheeks, and throat.

----------------------------

Dazed and in a great amount of pain, Kouta wearily pushed himself back onto his knees. The only thing on his mind right now was that Kaede was in danger, that something bad would if he did not do something right away. So it came as a huge relief to him, when he felt her arms wrap around his head and pull him close to her.

"K-Kaede!" He exclaimed, half-embarrassed and half worried, "Daijobu?!"

She softly rubbed her nose into his hair, his short strands tickling her nose and cheek, "H-Hai…" she muttered in an exhausting tone.

"Wh-Where's your grandfather?" He struggled slightly against her grip, which proved fruitless. She wanted to be near him and not let him go.

"He…He's gone now…" she sniffed away her tears, "He…He was a bad man, and, the police came, and took him away when we got out of the woods…"

She cried softly into his head. Out of respect for her, he did not move and in turn, wrapped his arms around her body.

For the past few months, she had what she thought was a strong resemblance of a family, and although she would never had admitted it, she was happy. But that was gone now, and in a few days, she would be completely alone again. In his passing minutes, he had taught Lucy a valuable lesson in life, the last decent memory she would have of him.

And she cried. She cried for the Noboru she thought she knew, but mostly, she cried for herself.

No matter how strong she was, she always became so weak around Kouta.

----------------------

**END CHAPTER 4**

----------------------

-bows-

Sorry for the long wait…AGAIN. I've finally settled down with World of Warcraft, and intend to continue my writing again. As I have promised in my profile, I have no intention of dropping any one of my stories thus far, especially **Elfen Lied **and **Shuffle!Hope**. For the fans of my **Shuffle!** story, stay tuned for the following week.


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